Members of the Unified Drug Enforcement Strike Team arrested a Lowell man Thursday on a litany of drug charges following a nearly months-long undercover narcotics investigation.
Frederick Eric Tyson, 51, was taken into custody at the Stage Stop Motel, located at 5131 Silver Springs Blvd., at about 3:30 p.m. after strike team members and deputies from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office spotted him standing near an outside stairwell. Tyson immediately admitted to having a glass pipe and some illegal narcotics in his left pocket, a UDEST report states.
Strike team members then searched Tyson and found an orange medicine bottle containing a brown powder substance that tested positive for heroin, a white rock-like substance that tested positive for methamphetamine, a separate white rock that tested positive for crack cocaine and 20 unidentified pills, the report says, adding that a glass pipe wrapped in a power towel also was found in his left pocket.
After being read his rights, Tyson admitted the items were his, the report says.
Tyson was transported to the Marion County Jail and charged with three counts of selling a controlled substance (heroin and methamphetamine), three counts of possession of a controlled substance, three other counts of possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine, heroin and crack cocaine), possession of drug paraphernalia and a probation violation for a petit theft charge. He was being held on $53,000 bond on the drug charges and no bond on the probation violation charge.
Tyson, who has spent time in the Marion County Jail 16 times since April 1993, is due to appear in a Marion County courtroom Aug. 23 at 1:30 p.m. to answer to the probation violation charge and again on Sept. 11 at 9 a.m. to answer to the 10 drug charges.
Tyson’s arrest followed an undercover narcotics investigation that started July 16 when a confidential source working under the direction of the strike team purchased a substance for $20 that tested positive for methamphetamine. A confidential source also purchased a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine for $40 on July 19, followed by another $40 purchase by a confidential source on Aug. 1 of a substance that tested positive for heroin, the report says.
