Man woken up in car and charged with possession of meth

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Gary Greg Rue

A Tavares man has been arrested after he and another man were found sleeping in a vehicle with a prescription bottle containing methamphetamine in the back seat.

Gary Greg Rue, 54, of 420 S. Lake Ave., was charged with possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) without a prescription. Lake County Jail records show Rue has already been arrested three times, most recently in October 20021 for petty theft and violently resisting an officer.

Shortly before 10 a.m. Sunday, the Leesburg Police Department received an anonymous call about a suspicious vehicle parked in front of a house on Marshall Drive. The caller said a white Ford was backed into a parking space and the two male occupants appeared to be consuming narcotics, and one was slumped in his seat, according to the police report.

An officer responded to the house, approached the front passenger side window and saw two slumped men who appeared to be sleeping. The keys were in the ignition and there was an open can of Budweiser beer in the center console. Due to a clear violation of the open container law and the possibility of a DUI, the officer requested a backup officer and a K-9 officer, according to the report.

The officer woke the occupants and asked the driver – later identified as Rue – for his license. Rue searched the entire vehicle and couldn’t find it. The K-9 officer responded and the dog gave a positive narcotics alert, according to the report.

Officers searched the vehicle, which contained a large number of personal items in the back seat. Above the stack, and within easy reach of Rue and the passenger, were a pair of Adidas sneakers. Inside the sneakers, officers found an orange prescription container with the label scratched off. The prescription bottle contained a white crystalline substance that looked like methamphetamine, along with a separate small bag containing the same substance. The bulk substance weighed approximately 3.2 grams and the substance in the bag weighed 0.5 grams. The substance tested positive for methamphetamine, according to the report.

After reading their Miranda warnings, the passenger declined to speak to the officer, but Rue said he would. Rue initially said he didn’t know who the shoes belonged to. Then he said they belonged to a woman who had access to the vehicle. Rue said the prescription container was likely his and his fingerprints may have been on it. He did not claim to know what was inside the container, according to the report.

Rue was booked with the Leesburg Police Department and taken to the Lake County Jail. He was released on Monday on $2,000 bond and will appear in Lake County court on May 23.

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