County employee arrested

TAMPA - Hillsborough County deputies arrested a county employee Tuesday morning for illegally possessing five generic Xanax pills without a prescription.

Deputies were waiting with handcuffs for 35-year-old Clerk of Courts employee Edwin Lopez-Valentin when he got to work at the clerk's warehouse on Falkenburg Road. So far, they've charged him with illegal possession of prescription drugs.

The warehouse, with its tens of millions of Hillsborough Court records going back more than 100 years, is considered a secure facility, and that's why when Clerk Pat Frank's managers heard the rumors, they blew the whistle.

"If someone as an employee thinks they're going to get away with something that's illegal, I hate to disappoint them, but that's not going to be the case, there's going to be a punishment," said Pat Frank, Hillsborough County Clerk of the Circuit Court.

Lopez spent his days working at the warehouse, pulling records, but what investigators want to know is what else he might have done there.

"We got a call Friday from Miss Frank's office that an individual employee was dealing, and was bragging about having access to these drugs," said sheriff's spokesman Larry McKinnon.

Investigators say Lopez, who has no prior arrest record in Hillsborough, admitted to possession of the pills without a prescription. They've released no other information on his interrogation, and someone answering his phone had no comment to FOX13 News.

"We're a microcosm of what's happening in the community," Frank says, "and I think with the economic times, and the problems people are having, people are thinking about how they can skirt the law, and that doesn't resolve the problem, it gets them in more trouble."

Investigators say no drugs were found in Lopez' work area. He has been suspended without pay by the Clerk's office.