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Stash of cash may have drug link
By SUZANNAH GONZALES INVERNESS -- They were just trying to find a phone book, but found more than $5,700 in cash instead. A North Florida retired couple on Thursday had just checked into Room 10 at Florida Motel on U.S. 41 N when, in a dresser drawer, they spotted the money in a green bank bag along with a leather address book holding a large number of business cards, according to an Inverness police report. But the couple didn't put the cash in their pockets. And they didn't tell the front desk. They went to the police. The couple even helped police count and recount the money. Inverness police Detective Michael Erb said they did so "rather than sticking it in their back pockets and going about their business." "Very honest people," Erb said of the husband and wife, who told police they wished to remain anonymous. The money was left by mistake, Erb said. "Yeah, they just plain forgot it." Later that day, police learned that a Key Largo man, Paul Luczynski, had occupied the room the evening before the couple checked in. Erb said police still are investigating to whom the money belongs. Luczynski, 50, was arrested late Thursday after he was pulled over by Erb. The detective stopped Luczynski because he made an illegal left turn from Main Street onto N Seminole Avenue, according to an arrest report. A drug-sniffing dog from the Citrus County Sheriff's Office was called in to inspect Luczynski's yellow GMC box truck. After the dog reacted to the driver's door of the vehicle, a sheriff's deputy asked Luczynski if he would mind being searched, the report said. Ten marijuana cigarettes were found hidden in Luczynski's right sock, the arrest report said. Next, deputies searched the truck and found a large saucepan encrusted with a crystalline material, which tested positive for amphetamines. Luczynski was transported to the Citrus County jail, where he was released after posting $5,500 bail, records showed. Luczynski had been arrested in Miami about 24 years ago and charged with possession of cocaine, marijuana, barbiturate, narcotic equipment and stolen property, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records.
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