A deputy pulled over a green 2002 Chevrolet Trailblazer for driving under the speed limit in the passing lane of State Road 44 in Lake Panasoffkee around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, setting off a chain of events that ended with a hospital extraction, an ambulance floor stained with methamphetamine, and two people in the Sumter County Detention Center. The driver, 43-year-old Brianne Lee Anderson of Brooksville, and her passenger, 54-year-old Daniel Paul Ott of Lecanto, now face multiple drug-related charges.
K-9 Alert Leads To Drugs Within Reach
A K-9 alerted to the odor of narcotics in the vehicle, according to Villages-News.com, which reported that deputies recognized Anderson as a known narcotic offender and noted that Ott was observed without a seat belt. A search turned up a Senaca cigarette pack in the pocket behind the driver's seat, within Ott's reach, containing a clear glass bubble pipe with white and crown residue along with a 4.20-gram piece of methamphetamine. Deputies also reported finding a small white flip-open mirror in Anderson's purse, with a substance on it that tested positive for methamphetamine.
It was at that point, per the outlet's account, that Anderson indicated she had a bag of methamphetamine hidden in her vagina. She was transported by ambulance to a hospital for its removal, and EMS personnel reportedly instructed her to remove the bag herself while en route.
Attempt To Destroy Evidence En Route To Hospital
During the ride, Anderson allegedly ripped part of the bag open and wiped methamphetamine off herself and onto the floor of the ambulance in an attempt to destroy it. The same account describes a napkin containing methamphetamine that was later found shoved between the seat and the wall of the ambulance. A deputy collected the drugs from the ambulance floor and the napkin, which weighed a combined 4.71 grams, while hospital staff separately extracted the remaining bag from Anderson's body, weighing 5.83 grams — bringing the reported total to 10.54 grams of methamphetamine recovered.
Anderson was ultimately charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and tampering with evidence. She was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and held without bond. Ott was charged with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia and is being held at the same detention center on $3,500 bond, the report notes. According to the same account, Ott had three prior narcotic-related convictions, while Anderson had two.
Not The First Time A Body Cavity Has Hidden Drugs In Florida
Attempts to conceal narcotics inside the body during arrests have surfaced elsewhere in Florida with far graver consequences. In Polk County in 2014, deputies arrested April Rollison, 31, of Sebring on drug possession charges and took her to Bartow Regional Medical Center after a jail body scan revealed what officials described as two foreign objects in her body, according to Bay News 9. A glass crack cocaine pipe was removed before she was medically cleared and returned to jail, but as The Ledger reported, Rollison later went into medical distress while being booked into the Polk County Jail and remained in critical condition until she died.
Body-cavity concealment has also shown up in federal smuggling cases far from Sumter County. Border Report detailed how two women were charged after allegedly trying to smuggle fentanyl from Mexico inside their bodies through pedestrian lanes at El Paso's Ysleta port of entry, with one woman, Angelysse Swink Gonzalez, allegedly removing a sealed condom carrying 1,000 fentanyl pills from her vagina during a secondary inspection, per Border Report. A second woman, Ashley Judith Pedroza, was accused of carrying packages containing nearly a pound of methamphetamine and a sealed condom with 500 fentanyl pills.
No such medical emergency was reported in the Lake Panasoffkee case, and the extent of the charges against Anderson and Ott rests on the details laid out in the arrest report as relayed by Villages-News.com. Court dates, attorneys and how the case will proceed were not addressed in the available reporting.
