FRONT DOOR OF STORE BATTERED BY SUV

Deputies Find A Woman With Valium, Xanax
Hiding In The Safety Harbor Drugstore

SAFETY HARBOR - Wearing all black, with her face smeared with
camouflage makeup, Susan Chiccino pulled on the back door of Bi-Wise
Drugs shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday, authorities said.

Frustrated that she couldn't get inside, Chiccino decided to try the
pharmacy's front door - using her husband's 1995 Chevy Suburban, said
sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jim Bordner.

Chiccino, 45, of Clearwater, pointed the truck toward the store front
and stepped on the accelerator, a witness said. When the Suburban got
caught on a cement barrier in the parking lot, she backed it up and
tried again.

"She was using the Suburban as a battering ram," recalled Patrick
Arcese, 46, who lives near the pharmacy at 3101 State Road 580 and
said he heard Chiccino at the pharmacy's back door. "She blasted into
the store."

The sport utility vehicle shattered the store's glass door and bent a
metal security gate. Chiccino parked the SUV next to the pharmacy and
slipped inside, Arcese said.

The store's alarm sounded at 1:56 a.m. and deputies arrived three
minutes later, Bordner said. They set up a perimeter and hollered
through the door, warning that a police dog would be sent inside.

There was no response.

Deputy Anthony Lorusso dispatched his canine partner, Koda. Moments
later, Koda found Chiccino hiding in the back of the store and bit her
right leg, Bordner said.

Found stuffed inside her clothing were 4,000 pills, including Valium
and Xanax, and several syringes, Bordner said. "She knew what she was
doing," he said.

Deputies said Chiccino took anti-depressant medication and had
previously filled her prescriptions at the pharmacy.

Once in custody, Chiccino was taken to a hospital for the dog bite to
her right knee and then booked into Pinellas County Jail on a felony
charge of burglary.

Chiccino was released Tuesday after posting $10,000 bail. It was her
first arrest in Florida, records show.

Her husband, Ricci Chiccino, 51, said in a brief interview that she
suffers chronic pain and was likely seeking medication. "She can't
even sit up on her own" without pain, he said.

The owner of Bi-Wise Drugs, David A. Corbin, could not be reached for
comment.

But Tuesday afternoon, his pharmacy was already back in business.
Carpenters covered the smashed-out store front with plywood and hung a
new door. Customers trickled inside. Employees declined to comment on
the burglary, saying they needed to get back to work.