Local & State Headlines

Neighbors help in drug bust

• Lee County authorities make two drug arrests near a pre-kindergarten facility.

J.D. Sumner

LEESBURG — Good information from nosy neighbors coupled with perfect timing by drug agents helped rid a neighborhood of a marijuana peddler and a distributor, Lee County law enforcement officials said Friday.

On Wednesday, lee sheriff’s deputies arrested Curtis Thompson and Maceo Littleton each on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute after agents observed the two conducting a drug deal near a Leesburg Pre-kindergarten center, Sheriff Harold Breeden said. Littleton was also charged with selling marijuana, the sheriff said.

“I got some information from neighbors nearby that a guy was selling dope, so we set up some surveillance and didn’t have to wait long,” Breeden said.

Catching a suspected dealer was something investigators and Breeden expected. Nabbing a possible mid-level distributor was a pleasant bonus.

“On the tape you can see him just bring the drugs out to the street,” Col. Duane Sapp of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said. “Right out in the open.”

Breeden said that officials are researching the possibility of charging the pair with distributing marijuana within a 1,000 feet of a school since they were so close to the pre-k center.

The drug transactions were going on so close to the center that in one of the tapes, Sapp said, an unsuspecting child — carrying a small backpack — walks right through the camera shot that was centered on the alleged dealer.

“It’s especially a priority to keep drugs away from children,” Sapp said. “This was going on right in front of them.”

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