Photo: Karen Hernandez
April 17, 2021 – Ventura County, Ca.
There appears to be no limit to the inventiveness of those involved in criminal activities as they work to avoid detection by law enforcement.
Case in point is the creativity of 63-year-old Ventura resident Karen Hernandez as reported by Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Detective Jarrod Foote, revealed only after a four-month long investigation into her activities suspected to involve the illegal possession, transport, and sales of controlled substances.
It all came to a head in the middle of the afternoon of April 13th when a unit of the VCSD Special Crimes Unit finally closed in on her and “conducted a traffic stop” while Hernandez was behind the wheel of her car and in the company of “a small dog named
“Gracie’.” When detectives made contact with her, “she displayed signs of being under the influence” and was promptly taken into custody.
The ensuing probable cause search of her vehicle and of “Gracie” and her dog chews and dog foot revealed “almost two pounds of methamphetamine, a quarter pound of cocaine, a quarter pound of heroin, rock cocaine, a large sum of cash,” and other indicia of active drug sales.
Once it was verified that “Gracie” had not consumed any of the drugs, the dog was turned over to Animal Services and Hernandez was transported to Ventura County Jail, where she was booked on multiple felony drug charges on a no-bail hold.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
