Les Neuhaus
It looked suspiciously like a drug deal at a gas station.
A woman got out of the passenger seat of a parked car when another pulled up next to the car she was in. A plastic baggie exchanged hands, according to a Boca Raton Police report.
When the female suspect got back into her car and left the Marathon gas station, turning onto Glades Rd. with another male suspect driving, a patrolman followed.
Noticing the car she was traveling in east of downtown Boca Raton had a taillight out — plus, she didn’t come to a full stop at a stop sign, so the patrolman pulled her over, the report stated.
That’s when Christine Nancy Maier, 31, “panicked” and flung three hypodermic needles into the backseat, next to a toddler on Tuesday. The child wasn’t in a car seat, a violation in itself. The policeman noticed movement in the car by Maier as he stopped them
The child also had a cut on its face, which the woman later said happened when the child had fallen the day before.
It’s unclear if Maier is the mother, as the portion of the report indicating the relationship was blocked out, a redaction out of privacy concerns due to the child’s age.
After inspecting the driver’s license of the man behind the steering wheel, who was not married to Maier, the patrolman explained to the pair he had observed Maier conducting what appeared to be a drug transaction back at the Marathon station. He asked to search the vehicle and the driver consented.
Upon the search, the officer found the needles next to the child. In the front passenger seat lay a sunglasses case with two more needles and a baggie containing a “crystal white” substance, likely cocaine or methamphetamine.
But Maier had another excuse, the needles were for a friend, so he could shoot “methamphetamines.” The driver, the report said, became angry, telling officer he didn’t know about the drugs or needles. He had driven her to Boca Raton from rural Okeechobee, Fla. because it had “been a while since” he’d been with a woman.
The man was not arrested, according to the report. The toddler is now in the custody of the state of Florida’s Dept. of Children and Families.
Maier was booked at 7:45 p.m. into the Palm Beach County Jail by sheriff’s deputies. She was charged with felony drug possession, child neglect without bodily harm and possession of drug paraphernalia.
She is being held on $3,000 bond and is currently still in jail. She has five previous arrests, according to the Palm Beach County Clerk of Court public records, with one prior felony conviction.
