A homeless man in Leesburg was arrested behind RaceTrac when a K-9 sniffed out methamphetamine in his backpack.
An officer responded to a hold up panic alarm at RaceTrac, located at 324 N U.S. Hwy. 27/441, around 11:05 p.m. Monday, according to an arrest report from the Lady Lake Police Department. While enroute, dispatch advised that the staff said everything was OK, but wanted 52-year-old Eugene Thomas Henry to be trespassed.
Henry was later found at the back of the building with a red backpack and a broken bicycle. He gave a K-9 unit at the scene consent to deploy a drug detection dog on his property. He also admitted to having something in the top pocket of his backpack, the report said.
The K-9 then positively alerted to the presence of narcotics. A search of the backpack revealed a whole glass bubble meth pipe. There was also folded aluminum foil that contained a crystalline rock consistent with methamphetamine. It tested positive for such and weighed 1.4 grams, the report said.
Henry was arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Lake County Jail with bond set at $3,500.
He was also arrested in Oct. 2024 at a Panera restaurant in The Villages for drug possession.