SHERIFF'S EMPLOYEE RELEASED FROM JAIL

Gloria Mays and two others were arrested Jan. 20 in Miami on charges of
trafficking in cocaine and cocaine possession.

DADE CITY -- Gloria Mays is back home, driving around Dade City in a blue
Cadillac and guarding the answers to everyone's questions.

Mays, 55, a 16-year employee of the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, was
arrested Jan. 20 after she paid two undercover detectives $19,000 for a
kilogram, or about 2.2 pounds, of powder cocaine at a McDonald's restaurant
at 2200 NW 36th St. in Miami, authorities said.

She and two co-defendants -- Linda Fae Scott, 45, of 20706 Center St. in
Dade City, and Joe Nathan Vaughn, 47, of 15245 Davis Loop No. 36 in Dade
City -- also had $7,000 in cash on them when they were arrested.

Mays was released on Wednesday after posting $50,000 bail, according to
Miami jail officials. Scott and Vaughn remained in custody Monday, each
awaiting $250,000 bail.

Miami jail officials said a company listed only as A.M.C.C. posted the
money for Mays' release. Contacted Monday afternoon, Mays wasn't giving any
more details.

She wore a white T-shirt and denim shorts as she left her friend Dorothy
Davis' house off Sumner Lake Road.

"I don't have any comment," she told a Times reporter as she left the
driveway. "All I have to say right now is I'm asking people for their prayers."

She drove away in her 1996 Cadillac Seville, leaving in the yard the 1995
Lexus also registered in her name.

Mays was hired in 1985 as a school crossing guard. Before the arrest for
trafficking in cocaine and cocaine possession, she served as a civil deputy
responsible for serving summons, subpoenas and other notices. She earns
about $35,000 a year.

Mays is on unpaid administrative leave until a sheriff's investigation is
complete.

She is scheduled to appear in a Miami court Feb. 20.

Pasco County sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said her job wouldn't hinge
solely on what happens in court.

"When it comes to civil service employees, any employee actually, the
sheriff can fire them at his discretion at any time, for any reason," Doll
said. "They have civil service rights, which they can take before a board.
But the preponderance of evidence is less than (in) a court of law."

Mays is at least the second employee in the civil process department to be
arrested in the past two years.

In March 1999, civil clerk Dana Brady was charged with using her job to
steal $350,000 from the Sheriff's Office.

Brady agreed to a plea bargain in December 1999 that gave her 20 years of
probation.