The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office conducted a six-month investigation into Florida drug distribution has culminated in the revelation that a certain brand of heroin has been dubbed “Donald Trump” by local dealers. In January, police confiscated five thousand five hundred packages of heroin, a substantial number of which included an image of Trump’s face and name.
One local newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, reported that Pam Bondi, the Florida Attorney General, was unamused by the discovery. Echoing Trump’s distinct oratory technique, Bondi repeatedly stated that using the image was a “big mistake… a big mistake.” She added that she was going to ensure that Trump received one of the packages of heroin labeled with his name, perhaps implying that it might be regarded as some kind of trophy.
It isn’t the first time that Bondi’s name has shared headlines with Trump. In 2016, during the campaign for the White House, it was discovered that Trump had not properly disclosed an impermissible contribution to a political group which has ties to Bondi, a Florida Republican. At the time, Bondi had been determining whether or not to begin an investigation of fraud regarding Trump University.
The improper contribution, made in 2013 by the Trump Foundation, was in violation of federal rules which do not permit charities to donate to political candidates. Furthermore, the Trump Foundation failed to report the donation to the Internal Revenue Service. Instead, the Foundation reported to the IRS that they had donated to a group that had a similar name, but was unrelated to Bondi. Misreporting the name effectively obfuscated the fact that the illegal contribution had been made. When asked about the donation in September of 2016, Trump brushed off the question, making the irrelevant statement that Bondi was “very popular.”
However, Trump wasn’t the only celebrity featured on the packages of heroin that were recovered, which was the largest heroin bust in the county’s history, according to Al Nienhuis, a sheriff involved in the operation. Other packages had different namesakes, including drug kingpins such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar. While authorities may be at a loss for the reasoning behind some of the labels, they are certain that the substances had been brought into the county by Kelvin Scott Johnson, a forty six year old resident of Hernando County.
Johnson, who is currently being held at the Hernando County Detention Center on a bond of seventy five thousand dollars, faces a prison term of fifteen to twenty years, should he be convicted. Johnson has been accused of purchasing the opiate from a location in the northeastern United States, and then shipping it south to Florida, where it was identified and reported by a postal worker. Once notified, the authorities began watching Johnson more closely, leading to the bust.
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