An Ocala woman was arrested with drug paraphernalia after being stopped in an unregistered vehicle near ALDI.
An officer on patrol saw 44-year-old Trisha Marie Sallee driving a 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV through the ALDI parking lot, located at 3915 E CR 466, unusually fast at 8:55 p.m. Saturday, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department.
As he pulled into the parking lot, the vehicle made a sudden U-turn toward the northern exit onto East County Road 466, which made him suspicious. Vehicles did not often pull into a parking lot and quickly leave. The officer had also seen another unit parked in the lot, which made it apparent why the vehicle had fled, the report said.
The officer continued to watch the vehicle as it pulled onto County Road 466 and failed to obey a stop sign. He subsequently conducted a traffic stop near County Road 107, where Sallee apologized because she did not mean to run the stop sign. She and the other occupant were actively smoking cigarettes at the time, a common tactic used to deter police K-9s from finding narcotics, the report said.
The report noted the vehicle was full of smoke to the point where the officer had to ask the pair to put out their cigarettes. This made him more suspicious.
He then asked Sallee if she lived in Florida, to which she stated yes, although not permanently. She was allegedly seeing if she wanted to officially move to Florida. She had gotten employment a couple of weeks prior, which was a violation of the requirement for non-residents to register a vehicle within 10 days of accepting a job in the state, the report said.
At that point, a K-9 unit responded to the scene and positively alerted to the odor of narcotics. A search of the vehicle followed and yielded a small plastic baggie with methamphetamine residue and a small glass pipe in Sallee’s wallet. She denied ownership of both items, but she admitted to recently using methamphetamine, the report said.
Sallee was arrested on charges of drug equipment (possess or use) and violate nonresident exemption from registration. She was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and released after posting $1,150 bond.
She was also arrested in April when she was found sleeping in her car at a pool in The Villages.