An Inverness man and an Ocala woman were arrested in a Motel 6 parking lot last week on a multitude of charges after a Florida Highway Patrol trooper was alerted to a stolen vehicle.
The FHP trooper was traveling on Interstate 75 south of U.S. Route 27 on Wednesday when he received an alert from his LoJack unit and started tracking a white Ford F-350 pickup that had been reported stolen in Citrus County.
The trooper tracked the vehicle to the side parking lot of the nearby Motel 6 and saw two men and one woman entering and exiting the truck as if they were loading it to leave. They spotting the trooper sitting in an adjacent parking lot and “began acting as if they were going to flee the vehicle on foot,” the FHP report states.
The trooper then ordered them into a prone position on the ground and the vehicle’s driver, later identified as 37-year-old Robert Quinton Williams, appeared to throw a large item into a tree line behind the stolen truck, the report says.
After all three were secured in handcuffs, troopers found a blue zippered SunTrust money bag bank bag at the rear of the truck between its right passenger side and a parked SUV. The bag contained 3.2 grams of heroin, 26 grams of methamphetamine, two Alprazolam pills, two unidentified green pills and a methamphetamine smoking pipe, the report says.
The methamphetamine was packed in two sandwich-style plastic bags as large individual rocks and also in a ground thick powder form. The heroin also was packaged in clear Ziploc-style baggies. And the bank bag contained a receipt for the room signed by 28-year-old Barbara Jean Wise and a letter addressed to her, the report says.
The pickup, which had its ignition punched, was confirmed to be stolen. It was loaded with luggage containing clothing and personal items.
Both Williams and Wise were taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail. Williams, who lives at 1314 Cypress Cove Ct. in Inverness, was charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle, petit theft and Citrus County probation violations for possession of methamphetamine, grand theft, grand theft of a motor vehicle and driving with license suspended or revoked. He was being held on $2,500 bond on the grand theft of a motor vehicle and petit theft charges and no bond on the probation violations.
Wise was charged with possession of drug equipment, three counts of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription and trafficking methamphetamine (14 grams or over). She was being held on $31,500 bond and is due in court July 2 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges.