Tarpon High School senior arrested on 3 felony counts

Deputies say a 17-year-old who pushed a teacher had a fake driver's license and a rolled $100 bill with cocaine on it.

By ED QUIOCO

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 14, 2000

TARPON SPRINGS -- A Tarpon Springs High School senior was charged Friday with three felonies after he pushed a teacher who confronted him in a school restroom where cocaine was found, deputies said.

The 17-year-old, whose name is being withheld by the Times because he is a juvenile, also was carrying a fake driver's license and a rolled-up $100 bill that had traces of cocaine on it, according to a Pinellas County Sheriff's Office report. Rolled up bills sometimes are used to inhale lines of cocaine.

The student was charged with possession of a controlled substance, battery on a school official and unauthorized use of a driver's license, said Sgt. Greg Tita, Sheriff's Office spokesman. The teacher who was pushed, chorus director Charles Cheeseman, was not seriously injured.

"I am familiar with (the student), and he has displayed an attitude in the past which would indicate that laws do not apply to him," School Resource Officer William Stewart, a Pinellas County Sheriff's deputy, wrote in his report. "He has made statements in the past that he would never be caught by an uneducated police officer."

The incident began around 8:45 a.m. Friday when a female student complained to Cheeseman that two male students had entered a girl's restroom in the auditorium area, according to the report.

Cheeseman found the 17-year-old and an 18-year-old student locked in the bathroom. The teacher unlocked the door and then had to shove the door open as the students tried to hold it shut.

As Cheeseman was trying to find out what the two were doing, they ran out of the bathroom and the 17-year-old pushed the teacher against the door, according to the report. The student told deputies that he just bumped into Cheeseman.

A forensics unit found enough cocaine in the bathroom to run tests and still have some left over to store as evidence, Tita said. No charges were filed against the 18-year-old.

School district officials would not say what action will be taken against the student. Nancy Zambito, the county's director of school operation, said the first time students are caught with drugs, they are suspended for 10 days and reassigned to a disciplinary program for at least one semester.

Students who strike a teacher are removed from the school and either a reassignment or expulsion is recommended, depending on the severity of the situation, Zambito said.

Principal John Nicely declined to comment on the specific charges.

"We had a student make some bad choices on Friday," Nicely said. "A large percentage of our students do good things and do what they are asked. But when you make an error in judgment, there are consequences to it."

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