Repeat drug offender, gang member charged with drug trafficking

An admitted gang member with repeated drug convictions was arrested Saturday morning in Prosperity and faces new charges of drug trafficking and weapons violations.

Scottie Lee Cromer, 34, was in a vehicle stopped by Newberry County sheriff’s deputies around 2 a.m. at a checkpoint at Main and Brown streets in Prosperity, the sheriff’s department said.

When deputies approached the vehicle, they said they could smell a strong odor of marijuana and investigated further. Inside, they found marijuana and an assault rifle with a fully loaded clip in the van, deputies said.

Cromer also was found to have a large quantity of cocaine and crack cocaine on himself, deputies said.

Cromer is a self-admitted member of the Bloods gang, according to the sheriff’s department, with two previous convictions for illegal drugs. He has served a seven-year federal prison sentence for weapons violations, according to the sheriff’s department.

Cromer is charged with trafficking cocaine (third offense), possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine (third offense), possession of marijuana, possession of a weapon during a violent crime and possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a violent crime.

“This person has no business with a firearm of any type, much less one with such destructive power,” Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said in a news release. “We will use every available law at the state and federal level to make sure he is removed from society for as long as possible.”

Investigators are requesting that Cromer be denied bond at a hearing later Saturday.