Senior Citizen Admits To Selling Drugs To Pay For His Holiday

PORT RICHEY, FL -- A senior citizen from Ingles has been arrested for reportedly dealing drugs so he could pay for his Thanksgiving holiday.

According to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, Raymond Melvin Kitting, 74, was arrested after a deputy stopped his purple Chevrolet Spark car for running a stop sign at Darius Street and Coventry Drive in Port Richey.

During the traffic stop, Deputy Nick Carmack and K9 Shep arrived. After sniffing the air in the car, Shep alerted the deputies to the presence of drugs.

The deputies searched the car and found various narcotics including morphine sulfate, Naproxen and suboxone strips.

They also found a black notebook containing phone numbers.

When the deputies patted Kitting down, they also discovered baggies in his pocket containing powdered morphine, morphine sulfate pills, oxymorphone hydrochloride pills and methadone hydrochloride pills.

Additionally, deputies found what looked to be a normal D battery. However, when they unscrewed the top of the battery, they found it contained hydromorphone hydrochloride and dilaudid pills, both Schedule 2 narcotics.

Kitting did not have a prescription for the drugs.

In all, deputies found 8.9 grams of drugs.

During the search, deputies say Kitting's cellphone rang 15 times, showing random phone numbers.

Kitting admitted the calls were from people wanting to purchase drugs. He told deputies he was selling the pills to pay for his Thanksgiving holiday.

He was arrested and charged with trafficking in drugs. His bail is set at $50,000.

Whitting was previously arrested in Pasco County on March 20 for selling drugs. He bonded out for those charges when deputies arrested him again.

Image via Pasco Sheriff

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