Candace J. Samolinski, of The Tampa Tribune;
January 21, 2001, Sunday, Final Edition
Copyright 2001 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune
The Tampa Tribune
January 21, 2001, Sunday, Final Edition
(MIAMI) -- The Lacoochee woman is accused of buying cocaine from undercover Miami police detectives.
It was about 10 a.m. Saturday when two undercover Miami police detectives met up with three Pasco residents and allegedly sold them a kilogram of cocaine, Pasco County sheriff’s officials said.
One of those suspects was sheriff’s Civil Deputy Gloria J. Mays, 55, of Lacoochee, Pasco sheriff’s spokesman Kevin Doll said. Mays is accused of renting a car with the two other suspects and driving to Miami to take part in the drug deal.
After completing the deal, the trio was met by vice detectives from Miami and Pasco. Investigators confiscated $ 26,000 they said was used to buy the drugs, Doll said Saturday. All three were arrested and face a charge of trafficking in cocaine. Mays faces an additional charge of possessing cocaine.
Mays has been placed on unpaid administrative leave pending the outcome of the case against her, Doll said.
Miami police declined to release the names of the other two suspects, but officials did say both live in Pasco.
Mays is a longtime resident of the Tampa Bay area and has lived in Tampa, Dade City and Lacoochee, records show. She began working for the sheriff’s office in 1984 as a school crossing guard and became a civil deputy in 1985.
Among her job duties were serving court summons, tax warnings, eviction notices and subpoenas. When she was hired as a civil deputy the job was considered a sworn law enforcement job, Doll said, but that changed with the 1993 election of former Sheriff Lee Cannon.
Before joining the sheriff’s office, Mays co-owned Big Mama’s Barbecue, at 509 E. Main St. in Dade City, with her friend, Dorothy Davis, records show. The two became close while singing in the choir at the Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Lacoochee and also worked together as housekeepers for the Bank of Pasco in Dade City.
Reached at her Dade City home Saturday, Davis said she was shocked to learn of her friend’s arrest.
“That can’t be,” she said. “I have no idea who she was with. She’s always been the kind of person who can strike up a conversation with anybody.”
Mays was being held Saturday in the Miami-Dade County Jail with bail set at $300,000.