Categories: Brevard County

Brevard Sheriff's Deputies Raid Hotel Drug Ring

WEST MELBOURNE, Florida — Friday evening, Deputies and Agents of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office executed four search warrants and served nine arrest warrants following a month-long investigation of drug trafficking at a Brevard County hotel. The drug raid was dubbed “Operation Early Checkout.”

During the month of January 2013, Agents of the Special Investigations Unit with the assistance of South Precinct uniform patrol deputies initiated an investigation of street level sales and use of illegal controlled substances at the Econo Lodge located at 4455 West New Haven Avenue in West Melbourne, Florida.

During the operation, undercover agents say they were able to purchase illegal controlled substances to include, opiate based prescription pills, cocaine base (crack), and cannabis from numerous suspects residing at the motel.

Shortly after 5:00 p.m. this evening, two previously identified suspects, Aaron Brantley
and William Gentry, allegedly attempted to trade a trafficking amount of opiate based prescription pills for a firearm. Both suspects were immediately taken into custody by law enforcement.

Simultaneously, Brevard County Sheriff’s SWAT Team members began the execution of search warrants on four rooms at the Econo Lodge. An additional eight suspects who had been identified throughout the course of the investigation were also arrested. These were:

Aaron Brantley, 24, of 4455 W. New Haven Avenue #185, West Melbourne, Fla.
Charges: Sale of Oxycodone and Attempted Armed Trafficking and Possession of
Firearm by a Convicted Felon.

William Ryan Gentry, 20, of 4455 W. New Haven #182, West Melbourne, Fla.
Charges: Principle to Attempted Armed Trafficking.

Steven Ellis, 46, of 4455 W. New Haven Ave. #313, West Melbourne, Fla. Charges:
Sale of Alprazolam and Sale of Cocaine.

Ecia Ford, 38, of 4455 W. New Haven Ave. #313, West Melbourne, Fla. Charges:
Principle to sale of Alprazolam.

Shannon Ballard, 25, of 4455 W. New Haven Ave. #326, West Melbourne, Fla.
Charges: Sale of Cocaine.

Ovidio Montilla, 26, of 4544 W. New Haven, West Melbourne, Fla. Charges: Sale of
Hydromorphone.

Travonn Marcus Calvin Street, 21, of 4455 W. New Haven Avenue #112, West
Melbourne, Fla. Charges: Sale of Cocaine

Edward Gandy, 21, of 4455 W. New Haven Avenue #315, West Melbourne, Fla.
Charges: Sale of Counterfeit Substance and Sale of Cocaine.

Charles McCutchen, 47, of 4455 W. New Haven Avenue #272, West Melbourne, Fla.
Charges: Sale of Cannabis.

William Dogoda, 53, of 4455 W. New Haven Avenue #272, West Melbourne, Fla.
Charges: Sale of Hydromorphone.

Two additional suspects, Justin Boome, 34, of 4455 W. New Haven Avenue, West Melbourne and Demarcus LaJaun Terrell Mitchell, 20, of 2332 Shenandoah Drive, Palm Bay, remain at large. Both individuals have active warrants for their arrest.