Fort Mill police charge Lexington County middle school teacher with drug trafficking
Police in Fort Mill charged a Lexington County teacher with trafficking prescription drugs, according to authorities.
Thursday, Fort Mill Police Department charged Aleksandar Doughty, 23, with driving under the influence and trafficking Xanax, a schedule IV prescription drug used to treat anxiety. Police also charged him with possession of marijuana.
Doughty is a 7th grade science teacher for Lexington School District 2 at R.H. Fulmer Middle School in Cayce, according to a district spokesperson. The district placed Doughty on administrative leave.
“The district is in the process of gathering more information regarding this incident,” spokesperson Dawn Kujawa said.
Doughty could not be reached for comment.
Just before 2 a.m., Doughty was driving on U.S. 21 and Harris Street in York County when he swerved between lanes, according to a police report. A Fort Mill officer pulled Doughty over and smelled alcohol, the report says.
The officer asked if Doughty had been drinking and Doughty said he had two beers at a nearby bar, according to the report. The officer asked if Doughty would do field sobriety test and he agreed. He told the officer he had hip and knee pain but still performed the test, the report says.
The officer determined that Doughty was too impaired to drive, arrested him and took him the Fort Mill Police Department headquarters. At the headquarters a breathalyzer showed Doughty was within the legal limit to drive, according to the report. When the officer asked Doughty to take another sobriety test, he told the police he had smoked marijuana before he was stopped, the report says.
Officers did a search of Doughty’s vehicle. Inside a backpack in the backseat floorboard, officers found 286 Xanax pills, nearly five grams of marijuana and about three grams of hash oil, sometimes called hashish or hash, according to a police report. Police also found $620 in cash.
Maj. Bryan Zachary of the Fort Mill Police Department confirmed Doughty was arrested by Fort Mill officers after a traffic stop. Fort Mill officers called members of the York County Multijurisdictional Drug Enforcement Unit to handle seizure of the drugs and pursue charges for drug trafficking, Zachary said.
Police booked Doughty in a York County jail where a judge gave him a $25,000 bond. Doughty posted the bond and was released.
Doughty started working as a teacher at R.H. Fulmer middle in August, the district said.
Doughty is set to have a first court appearance in January where a judge will determine if enough evidence exists to continue criminal prosecution.
This is Doughty’s first drug trafficking charge, court records show.
For a first offense, a person found guilty of trafficking between 100 and 500 doses of a schedule IV drug like Xanax, generically known as Alprazolam, will be imprisoned for a minimum of three years without a chance for probation. The maximum punishment is 10 years.
This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 10:35 AM.