A 52-year-old Leesburg woman is facing multiple felony charges after Mascotte police say she tried to hide cocaine by dropping baggies into her Polar Pop cup during a traffic stop late last month. Terrie Lynn Perez was pulled over after an officer spotted her black GMC Sierra driving with its lights off, setting off a chain of events that ended with her arrest and a $6,000 bond.
According to Leesburg-News.com, a Mascotte police officer first noticed Perez parked in the driveway of a known drug house on Orange Street around 8:25 p.m. on August 27. The officer reported watching her sit there for four minutes before she pulled out and drove eastbound on Orange Street with her headlights off, traveling 188 feet before the officer initiated a stop at the first house on Taurus Court in the Knights Lake neighborhood.
Perez told the officer she had the vehicle’s lights on and had just finished a DoorDash delivery, the report states. She later said she didn’t know how to turn on the vehicle’s lights, according to the same account. The Sierra belonged to Perez’s daughter, and Perez called her daughter during the stop to try to track down the vehicle’s paperwork after saying she didn’t know where the registration and insurance were kept.
Cup Concealment Caught On the Spot
Officers reported finding two large Polar Pop cups in the center console, and one of them held four multicolor dime baggies floating on top of the drink. Investigators say Perez put the cocaine into the cup at the moment the officer initiated the stop, an attempt at concealment that the report notes did not go unnoticed. The baggies were found to contain 2.82 grams of cocaine, per the arrest report cited by the news outlet.
Perez consented to a search of the vehicle and admitted the drugs were hers, according to the report. She reportedly showed shaking hands and voice along with rapid speech during the encounter. Perez said she did not use the cocaine herself and told officers she had bought it for someone else, and that text messages on her phone showed the purchase being arranged with the seller.
Shifting Accounts of the Orange Street House
Perez initially claimed she did not know who lived at the Taurus Court residence, then changed her account to say she did know the resident, the report states. Investigators had already flagged the Orange Street address where she'd been parked as a known drug house before the stop began.
Perez was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver, tampering with evidence in a criminal proceeding, and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was booked at the Lake County Jail and released after posting the $6,000 bond.
What the Charges Could Mean
Under Florida Statute 893.13, possessing cocaine with intent to sell, manufacture, or deliver is a second-degree felony carrying up to 15 years in state prison and fines as high as $10,000, according to the Jeff T. Gorman Law Offices. The firm's research also notes that Florida prosecutors typically lean on circumstantial evidence — multiple small baggies, cash, and digital messages arranging a deal — to prove intent to sell rather than simple possession, all details that mirror what investigators say they found in Perez's case.
Dropping the baggies into the cup during the stop also exposed Perez to a tampering charge. Under Florida Statute 918.13, concealing, destroying, or altering physical evidence during an active investigation is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison or five years of probation and a $5,000 fine, per Musca Law. The paraphernalia charge, meanwhile, is a first-degree misdemeanor under Florida Statute 893.147, carrying up to a year in county jail and a $1,000 fine, according to the Fort Myers Criminal Defense Attorney firm.
A Small City With Countywide Reach
Mascotte is a city of roughly 6,600 residents in southwestern Lake County, covering about 18 square miles and bordering Groveland and Leesburg, according to figures cited via Wikipedia. Despite its small size, the Mascotte Police Department equips officers with body cameras and taps into Florida's regional FACES facial recognition network, which cross-references images against more than 25 million driver's license photos and mugshots, per the Atlas of Surveillance.
Narcotics enforcement in Lake County runs through the Lake County Sheriff's Office Special Investigations Bureau, which folds in deputized officers from municipal departments including Leesburg and Mascotte for joint undercover work. That kind of coordination has produced large-scale busts before: Operation Sneak-A-Peek led to 27 arrests and the seizure of two pounds of cocaine, 22 pounds of methamphetamine, and three pounds of fentanyl, according to the Office of the State Attorney for the Fifth Judicial Circuit.
Any charges against Perez will be handled by that same office, which serves Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion, and Sumter counties under State Attorney Bill Gladson and is headquartered in Tavares. The circuit has been active on drug cases in recent days — a Lake County jury convicted two men on multiple felony drug charges tied to cocaine and fentanyl distribution across Leesburg and Fruitland Park, part of a wiretap-driven investigation covered in Hoodline's report on that takedown. It remains unclear whether Perez's case will proceed through standard circuit court or could qualify for one of the circuit's problem-solving diversion programs, a determination that will depend on her prior record and formal charging decisions from Gladson's office.
