A first-grade teacher in Jacksonville, Florida has been arrested after she sought to purchase an eighth of methamphetamine at the school she worked. CBS-17 reports that Valerie Lee Prince contacted an undercover police officer in order to purchase an $85 "eight ball" of meth, telling him she could buy the drugs before the kids arrived at school or during her lunch break.
In an audio recording that the Clay County Sheriff's Office provided, Prince can be heard making the request. "You call me, I can just say I have to use the phone real quick—I could step out and come right back in," she said in the recording.
"It was a pretty nonchalant request and the indication was it was no big deal to the suspect," Sgt. Vincent Hall of Clay County said. Prince planned to leave her classroom in order to make the purchase, using some on school grounds while saving the rest for her boyfriend, added Clay County Lt. Domenic Paniccia. "This is someone that was in charge of kids, first-grade kids, and it’s something that was a priority to us," said Paniccia.
The eighth of meth was delivered to her outside of school hours; she was later arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine. "In a case like this, for a teacher to be willing to leave the classroom, leave those children and to have the intent to go consume any degree of narcotics and then to return to the classroom setting where she has care of children is unacceptable," said Sheriff Darryl Daniels.
Prince has admitted that she has used the drug approximately 10 times within the last five to six months. Duval County Public Schools has launched its own investigation into the incident.
