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Veronica Johnson is Riptide’s kind of mail carrier. Mixed in with all the glossy fliers from pizza-by-the-slice places and the gas company bills, Johnson’s mailbag often included some more intriguing packages. Police say they caught her on her route on Tuesday in Marathon with a 10-pound package of weed addressed to an elderly woman on the island.
In fact, Johnson admitted the pot was bound for a local man who paid her $200-a-pop to bring him the marijuana.
Johnson, a 49-year-old who lives on Marathon, told Monroe County sheriffs that she’d cooked up the pot delivery scheme with a local dealer.
In exchange for the cash payments, Johnson would accept packages like the one she was caught with on Tuesday, says Becky Herrin, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office.
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After delivering other mail to the address on the package, Johnson would stash the pot in her trunk, and then deliver it to the dealer.
It’s not clear how long the scheme’s been going on, but Johnson told investigators that she knew what was inside the package and that she’d delivered similar packages a “number of times in the past,” Herrin says.
Johnson has been charged with felony marijuana possession.
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