Holding drugs ranging from just half a Xanax to enough marijuana to be charged with being a dealer has gotten several Florida certified nursing assistants suspended this month.
Certified nursing assistants on probation for drug charges comprise all of the Emergency Suspension Orders (ESO) that the Florida Department of Health have dropped on licenses this month. Usually, each month’s list of ESOs includes several licensed medical professionals who have defaulted on student loans.
June’s Emergency Restriction Orders (ERO) list looks similarly homogenous — two registered nurses diagnosed with opioid use disorder, St. Petersburg’s Marc Green and Gainesville’s Emily Sosnowski.
As for the ESOs:
▪ Jaleesa Flowers of Titusville plead guilty to one count of possession of a controlled substance and got one year of probation, which ends Jan. 9. Flowers got licensed Jan. 16, 2018.
According to the arrest report, Flowers was riding shotgun in Tanisha Brothers’ Nissan Altima on April 15, 2018, when Titusville police officer Jorge Cabranes ran the license plate. Cabranes found it seven months expired. When Cabranes came up on the car, he smelled marijuana. He ordered the women out of the car and to put their hands on the hood.
Brothers did so, Cabranes reported, but Flowers “but her right hand deep into the front of her blue jeans near her crotch area.” As Cabranes started to grapple with Flowers, he said “she continued to actively pull her right arm away from me and putting her right hand in the back side of her blue jeans near her rectum.”
Flowers kept reaching throughout the struggle. After Cabranaes handcuffed Flowers and told her of her right to remain silent, Flowers talked.
“Flowers advised she was attempting to put THC in her vagina,” Cabranes wrote. “She advised she had marijuana in her brassiere. A search incident to arrest produced a clear plastic syringe containing approximately less than one gram of a thick amber liquid substance inside the rear of Flowers’ pants.”
He said Flowers also had three grams of marijuana on her.
Jaleesa Flowers Florida Dept. of Corrections▪ Brittany Spearel of Holiday pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance and got 18 months of probation, which will end Aug. 17, 2020. Spearel was licensed Sept. 30, 2013.
During an Oct. 24, 2017 traffic stop by Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies, an arrest affidavit says, Spearel was seen reaching under the driver’s seat. When a deputy was there anything he needed to know before searching the car, Spearel said, “I hid pain pills under my seat.”
The orange medical bottle included 30 pills of hydrocodone. The affidavit says Spearel “told me she hid the pills under her seat and only uses them for personal consumption because of being in pain.”
After pleading guilty to disorderly intoxication, Spearel’s had six months of community control added to the 18 months of probation.
Brittany Spearel Florida Dept. of Corrections▪ Tiana Stickle of Fort Pierce pleaded nolo contendre to one count of possession of Alprozolam and got two years drug offender probation that ends Mar. 25, 2021. She’s been licensed since Dec. 21, 2016.
According to Stickle’s arrest affidavit, folks called the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office deputies over Stickle’s drunken behavior. She ran out of the home when the deputies arrived.
“I then located Stickle hiding in the backyard of the residence under a group of bushes,” Deputy Kristoffer Skovsgard wrote.
A search of Stickle’s purse turned up half a Xanax, which she hadn’t been prescribed.
Tiana Stickle Florida Dept. Corrections▪ Monica Willis of Altha was sentenced in November 2017 in two cases. She’ll be on probation until Nov. 29, 2021.
Online county court records, Florida Dept. of Corrections records and the Department of Health disagree on how Willis violated the law.
Her ESO says, in November 2017, she pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance in two different Jackson County cases. Corrections says she pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine in two cases, one in Calhoun County and one in Jackson County. Both places, however, have the same case numbers for the two convictions.
One of those case numbers doesn’t turn up in a search of both counties’ court records. One case number turns up in Jackson County, which says Willis pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of drug paraphernalia, along with being tagged a habitual offender in driving while her license is suspended.
As far as the nursing assistant license she’s had since June 2015, the possession with intent charge was enough to get an ESO.
Monica Willis Florida Dept. of Corrections
Since 1989, David J. Neal’s domain at the Miami Herald has expanded to include writing about Panthers (NHL and FIU), Dolphins, old school animation, food safety, fraud, naughty lawyers, bad doctors and all manner of breaking news. He drinks coladas whole. He does not work Indianapolis 500 Race Day.