Fruitland Park police officers arrested a woman Thursday after she told them a marijuana plant growing in her yard was for her grandmother’s illness.
After receiving a tip through CRIMELINE, officers responded to a house at 205 S. Dixie Ave., where they made contact with a female renter at the location and then with 22-year-old Deidre Eileen Popa when she arrived home a short time later.
After officers explained why they were at the home, Popa confirmed there was a marijuana plant growing on the south side of a fence line. She showed it to the officers, who described it as “approximately three feet tall and budding,” healthy, well taken care of and recently watered, a Fruitland Park police report states.
After being read her rights, Popa admitted to owning the plant and said it was being grown to help her elderly grandmother due to an illness. She added that she had been tending to the plant for several months, the report says.
After officers determined that the marijuana plant was about 220 feet from the New Life Church, Popa was taken into custody and transported to the Lake County Jail. She was charged with producing or manufacturing marijuana within 1,000 feet of a place of worship and held on $5,000 bond.
Popa is to appear in a Lake County courtroom Sept. 11 at 8:30 a.m. to answer to the charge.
