Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly this afternoon announced the conclusion of an 11-month investigation that netted the arrest of 12 residents of Palm Coast and Bunnell on a variety of drug-related sale and trafficking charges. To a man–and one woman–every suspect has a history of arrests, some of them long histories.
The Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit’s 20 undercover operations stretched from January to early November, From January 3 to November 7, with controlled purchases of 16.1 kilograms of illegal narcotics, including 164 grams of cocaine, 261 grams of methamphetamine, 109 grams of fentanyl, and 14 kilograms of marijuana. Controlled buys are usually conducted either by undercover deputies or by informants under their supervision. Deputies also seized seven firearms and $16,705 in cash.
“Interesting of note during the same time frame,” Staly said, “the Sheriff’s Office responded to 41 calls for service related to overdoses. That gives you an indication on why we do these undercover operations and why it’s critical that we continue to do that.”
For example 32-year-old Spencer Sarmento has been at the jail since Oct. 3 after the Special Investigations Unit served a search warrant at his residence on Canal Avenue in the Mondex, or Daytona North, where deputies found methamphetamine, 28 grams of marijuana, a loaded AR-15 (the assault rifle), and various rounds of ammunition.
Deputies believed he was a convicted felon at the time, so Sarmento would have been breaking the law by possessing weaponry. But the State Attorney’s Office dropped both weapons-related charges. He faced two third-degree felony charges of possession of over 20 grams of pot and possession of a controlled substance. But weeks earlier he had also sold a confidential sheriff’s source 4 grams of fentanyl (a very substantial amount of the extremely powerful and often lethal drug). The trafficking charge is a first-degree felony. (The sheriff’s release lists him as having sold heroin, which is not part of his court record.)
“The amount that I mentioned doesn’t sound like a lot,” Staly said, “but a pinhead size of the wrong dose of fentanyl or fentanyl laced narcotics, because that’s what they’re doing now can kill you, and the addict is just trying to feed their habit, which is why they need to seek help.”
But most of the suspects were swept in an operation that started early today. “Normally we can’t find them all, and we’re usually searching for three or four,” Staly said, “but they did a great job apprehending them. In fact, I personally witnessed one across the street from a restaurant today, when our PACE unit swepped in and arrested probably the last suspect we were looking for.” PACE is the Problem Area Crime Enforcement Unit. Arrests were conducted with the assistance of the agency’s SWAT unit.
“We will continue to do undercover operations throughout 2025 so don’t think that we’re stopping just because we did a roundup today,” Staly said, addressing dealers. “And I want to remind you, if you kill someone selling your poison, we will investigate you for murder and send you to prison for a very long time. We just had a conviction just a couple weeks ago that resulted in a life sentence in a state correctional facility.” He was referring to the trial conviction of Brian Pirraglia, the first Flagler County resident to be sentenced to life in prison after he contested his charge of first-degree murder in the death of his friend, Brian O’Shea, whom prosecutors said Pirraglia injected with a fatal dose of fentanyl. Pirraglia was a user rather than a dealer.
“If you’re a drug user, I ask you to seek help,” Staly said. “We know that you have an addiction problem, so seek help before you buy that fatal dose, and then we have to investigate your death as a homicide.” He said the country is not about to win the “war on drugs,” which he said the country has been fighting for decades, but “having a wide open border, I’ve seen a huge increase, and hopefully that’s going to start changing on January 20 next year, and stem the flow of the poisons coming in this country.” He thanked the State Attorney’s Office and the detectives and deputies who conducted the operations.
Those arrested during Operation Silent Night include, according to a release (with Sarmento’s exception, the information has not been independently verified as most of the individuals’ court records are not yet available):
- Luis Gil, 56, Palm Coast: Trafficking in Cocaine, Sale of Cocaine
- Robert Cone, 50, Bunnell: Sale of Methamphetamine
- John Harris, 35, Palm Coast: Sale of Cocaine, Unlawful Use of a Two-Way Communications Device
- Devarus Bethea, 37, Palm Coast: Trafficking in Fentanyl, Unlawful Use of a Two-Way Communications Device
- James Forbes, 55, Bunnell: Trafficking in Methamphetamine, Unlawful Use of a Two-Way Communications Device
- Michael Allison, 37, Palm Coast: Sale of a Fentanyl, Unlawful Use of a Two-Way Communications Device
- Winston Rawlings, 34, Palm Coast: Sale of Fentanyl, Sale of Cocaine, Unlawful Use of a Two-Way Communications Device
- Jerry Spates, 69, Bunnell: Two counts of Sale of Cocaine within 1,000 feet of a Specified Area
- Samuel Johnson Jr., 63, Bunnell: Sale of Cocaine within 1,000 feet of a Park
- Lizzette Johnson, 50, Palm Coast: Sale of Cocaine within 1,000 feet of a Park
- Spencer Sarmento, 32, Bunnell: Sale of Fentanyl
- Jarvis Warren, 47, Palm Coast: Sale of Cocaine
