TAVERNIER, Fla. – A 46-year-old man’s approach to selling methamphetamines at a Florida Keys strip mall landed him in jail Wednesday, according to sheriff’s deputies.
According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were sent to the Tavernier Towne Center, located at 91200 Overseas Highway, at around 6:20 p.m. after receiving reports that a man, later identified as Steven Dexter Bennett, was “yelling at shoppers and trying to sell meth to them.”
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Bennett, of Key West, also “threw a beer bottle at one man,” MCSO spokesperson Adam Linhardt said in a news release.
Linhardt said no one was seriously hurt. He said deputies found nearly 15 grams of meth on Bennett, along with a scale, pipes and a machete after taking him into custody.
Deputies took him into custody on charges of methamphetamine trafficking, disorderly conduct, battery and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Jail records show he was being held at MCSO’s Key West jail facility on a $125,000 bond.
Florida Department of Corrections records show that Bennett has had multiple felony convictions leading to stints in state prison, including convictions for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and drug possession in the Keys, as well as a conviction out of Broward County for battery on a law enforcement officer, which court records show stemmed from a 2011 arrest in Dania Beach.