Wednesday, March 5, 2003
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Wednesday, March 5, 2003 |
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'Just trying to pay my bills,' drug suspect says By JOHN MUNFORD
After he was busted for selling over 600 tablets of prescription muscle relaxers to an undercover officer, Bruce Turner of Sharpsburg tried to rationalize his actions to several unsympathetic members of the Fayette County Drug Task Force. "I'm just trying to pay my bills; I'm in the middle of a divorce," Turner said after he was arrested at GTO's drive-in restaurant off Ga. Highway 85 South in Fayetteville, where the deal went down Feb. 19. The majority of the pills are known as "Soma," a muscle relaxer whose affects are heightened when taken with alcohol, police said. Turner was charged with one felony count of selling synthetic narcotics and another prescription medicine called Lortabs. He also faces a felony charge of possession of marijuana. After the arrest, officers searched Turner's Sharpsburg residence where several more bottles of the medications were found, police said. Turner acquired the medicines by getting prescriptions from a physician, police said. "He was stockpiling them and selling them," said Lt. Mike Pruitt of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department, which oversees the task force with additional manpower from the Tyrone Police Department and the Pike County Sheriff's Department. "This dope came to Fayette from Coweta County, but he's dealing to people in Fayette," Pruitt said.
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