Florida undercover operation loses $60 and its informant after Pinellas County deputies recruit a woman whose alias was 'Crooked Jess'
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office set up an undercover narcotics sting targeting a property with a known history of drug activity, handed $60 to a woman whose street alias was "Crooked Jess," and watched her walk…
Key takeaways
- Pinellas County Sheriff's Office gave $60 to a woman with the street alias 'Crooked Jess' to buy crack cocaine in an undercover sting in March, and she walked into a backyard and never returned.
- Jessica Straubel Sanchez, 41, was arrested Saturday on theft and possession of drug paraphernalia charges, according to The Smoking Gun.
- The undercover officer wrote in the affidavit that after more than an hour Sanchez had no intention of returning and had deprived him of his money for her own use.
- Sanchez did not own a phone, which cut off any way to contact her once she left the officer's line of sight.
- At her arrest, officers found fentanyl residue on foil stored inside her undergarments, adding the paraphernalia charge to the initial theft count.
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office set up an undercover narcotics sting targeting a property with a known history of drug activity, handed $60 to a woman whose street alias was "Crooked Jess," and watched her walk around the corner into a backyard in March. She did not come back. Months later, Jessica Straubel Sanchez, 41, was arrested Saturday on theft and possession of drug paraphernalia charges, according to The Smoking Gun.
The March operation
Sanchez was recruited to purchase crack cocaine from the target residence. The undercover officer handed her the $60, watched her approach the property, and observed her enter the backyard. That was the last confirmed sighting.
After an hour elapsed on scene, the officer documented in the arrest affidavit that the wait had run past "more than a reasonable amount of time to wait for a narcotics transaction to occur between two subjects." Officers drove through the surrounding area looking for Sanchez. They came up empty. Compounding the problem: she "did not own a phone," which cut off any possibility of contact once she stepped out of the officer's line of sight.
The officer's conclusion, written into the affidavit, was that she "had no intentions of coming back to facilitate the transaction and had deprived me of my money for her own use."
What the arrest added
When Sanchez was picked up Saturday, the case expanded past the initial $60. Officers found fentanyl residue on foil stored inside her undergarments, adding a possession of drug paraphernalia count to the theft charge. The arrest affidavit reflects that this was not her first contact with law enforcement.
The alias "Crooked Jess" appears throughout the case documents and was already how she was known before the operation began. Whether that name factored into her selection is not addressed in the affidavit. The two counts filed, theft and possession of drug paraphernalia, are what the record currently shows.
Filed via foxnews.com