Palmetto woman charged with trafficking drugs. The charges didn’t stop there
A Palmetto woman is facing drug trafficking and other charges after she was arrested in Sarasota on Monday.
Latoya Carley, 35, was approached by Sarasota Police Department officers who saw her parked in a handicapped space on the west side of Fredd Glossie Atkins Park around 9:30 a.m., according to an arrest report.
Carley was in a Mercedes, according to police, but the tag on her vehicle was registered to a Chevrolet pickup truck.
Carley did not have a driver’s license with her and initially told police that her name was Kimberly Jones. After the name did not show up in a database search, Carley was threatened with arrest for giving a false identity and provided her real name.
A search under her real name revealed multiple felony warrants from Manatee County for probation violations related to past charges of trafficking amphetamine, possession of a firearm by convicted felon and grand theft of a motor vehicle.
Carley was then placed under arrest. During an ensuing search, officers found four rolled cigars containing MDMA in the vehicle and a small bag of marijuana in Carley’s bra. Carley later identified the substance in the cigars as “molly.”
Inside of the vehicle’s center console, which police say that Carley closed and leaned on when they first approached, more drugs were found. In various compartments there were four bags of MDMA that totaled more than 49 grams as well as another bag of marijuana and a single white pill that contained oxycodone.
Police said they learned that Carley had driven an unidentified male and female to a house in the area to purchase a large amount of MDMA, and Carley later told detectives that a male had been placing the drugs into small bags for sale in the back of the vehicle.
Carley is charged with trafficking amphetamine/methamphetamine, possession of a controlled substance within 1000 feet of a public park with intent to sell, possession of a controlled substance and providing a false identity to law enforcement while detained.
Carley was being held on bonds totaling $97,000 on Thursday at the Sarasota County Jail.