Man’s dirty dealing at mom’s laundromat lands him in jail, cops say
After numerous tips that drugs were being sold out of a Palmetto laundromat, police arrested the owner’s son after finding a backpack filled with marijuana, narcotics and mushrooms in his vehicle out front of the business.
Sherif Adel Mohamed Abdalla, 31, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with possession of cannabis with intent to sell, sale of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, possession of drug paraphernalia and four counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.
The Laundry Coin, 553 17th Street West, Palmetto, had been under police surveillance, leading up to Abdalla’a arrest.
“We got a lot of tips that their was narcotics activity there,” said Palmetto Police Chief Scott Tyler.
On Tuesday, when police began speaking to Abdalla in front of his mother’s laundromat he was acting nervously, according to a probable cause affidavit Police searched his his red SUV after smelling burnt marijuana from the vehicle.
“Please do not,” Abdalla allegedly told officers and walked towards the SUV when the officers told him they were going to search the SUV. He had to be ordered multiple times to sit before he did and began to “uncontrollably shake as he was smoking a cigarette.”
From inside Abdalla’s SUV, police report seizing 15 Adderall 20 mg pills, 23 Oxycodone 20 mg. pills, nine and a half Viagra 100 mg. pills, 36 Alprazolam 2 mg., 214.3 grams of suspected cannabis, three viles of THC oil, a cannabis grinder, a bag of silicide mushrooms and and a baggie with a white powdery substance.
The mushrooms, THC oil and powdery substance are being tested and Abdalla could face further charges, according to the report.
Abdalla was arrested by Palmetto police in June 2014 and charged with battery, exposure of sexual organs and battery on a law enforcement officer following an incident at the same laundromat, named King Coin Laundry at the time, according to court records.
At that time, Abdalla was employed at his mother’s laundromat, according to an arrest report. Corporation records also show that Abdalla use to be listed as the business’s vice president.
Police were called to the laundromat when a customer reported that Abdalla was intoxicated and continued grabbing her buttocks and breasts, and that when he refused to stop, began exposing himself to her and her 8-year-old son, attempting to rub himself on the woman and chased after them to their car.
The charges were later dropped, after Abdalla successfully completed the drug court intervention program.