Photo: Image of drug and weapon evidence collected during arrest | Ventura County Sheriff’s Office
As anyone on probation knows, the price of freedom is a habit of strict adherence to the provisions outlined by the court and failure to abide by those provisions—which generally attach to an offender for a period of three to five year—becomes a crime in itself which can see an individual returned to custody to serve out the entire term of an original sentence.
Apparently 41-year-old Thousand Oaks resident Kari Picarelli either forgot those fairly straightforward rules or simply chose to ignore them for a long enough period to put herself under the watchful—and suspicious—eye of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s Thousand Oaks Directed Enforcement Unit (DEU). That team of detectives, with the declared mission of “protecting East County communities by actively investigating illegal activities” began investigating Picarelli’s comings-and-goings earlier this year.
According to VCSD spokesman Sgt. Jonathan James, pursuant to their investigation and their growing suspicions, DEU detectives made contact with Picarelli on March 5th when they showed up at her residence to enforce the search terms of her probation. Once inside the residence, the cops found “controlled substances, narcotics sales- related indicia, and a handgun with ammunition.”
With that evidence in hand, detectives took Picarelli into custody and transported her to Ventura County Jail, where she was booked on charges that included possession for sale of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance, being under the influence of a controlled substance, and possession of a firearm by a felon.
