Deputies: Employee with Crack Cocaine Stole from Organic Living Center

An employee accused of stealing money and forging checks from Organic Living Garden Center was found Dec. 1 with crack cocaine, authorities report.

Lisa Ann Perry, 45, who lives on the 500 block of Patricia Avenue, is alleged to have taken $65 from the cash register, $45 from the safe box at the small Dunedin organic nursery and gardening solutions center. She is also accused of forging a business check in the amount of $50, Pinellas County Sheriff's arrest records state.

Deputies stopped Perry at a single-family home on Sunset Point Road in Clearwater on Dec. 1 around 5:30 p.m.

Pinellas Sheriff's deputies found a baggie of crack cocaine weighing less than a gram on top of her cigarettes. She admitted to purchasing the substance for $10 just before being stopped by deputies, according to arrest records. Deputies also found a glass pipe with burnt edges in her bag that she admitted she used to smoke crack.

She also admitted to forging the $50 check, dated Nov. 29, in owner Jai Hambly's name and said she planned to cash it later, arrest records indicate.

Hambly, a passionate organic gardener, started her Organic Living business in Clearwater in 2009, before moving to 601 Patricia Avenue in Dunedin in early 2012.

The garden center offers a wide range of products and services, including plants and gardening products. 

Perry is charged with felony counts of uttering a forged instrument, possession of a controlled substance, and theft of property by an employee. She is charged also with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. 

Perry is in custody at Pinellas County Jail, awaiting trial, on $4,650 in bond.