Miguel Antonio Gomez - Registered Sexual Predator - Smoking Pot isn't doing drugs (in the park)

Just because he was smoking pot, the registered sexual predator told a deputy, didn't mean he was doing drugs, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

That logic didn't impress Deputy Dean Cary, who arrested Miguel Antonio Gomez, 57, of 6417 Eden Lane, about 1 p.m. Wednesday on the Town 'N Country Greenway.

According to a sheriff's office release:

Deputies had received information from the county that several trail users had seen Gomez loitering in the park and recognized him from flyers posted in the area. As a registered sexual predator, Gomez is not allowed to be in a park.

Cary spotted Gomez riding his bicycle on the trail near Webb Road and then saw him sitting in the woods. Cary smelled marijuana as he approached and saw marijuana on the ground near Gomez, who also had the drug hidden in a cigarette pack in his pants, the sheriff's office said.

"The suspect made a statement that his use of marijuana was not to be considered him doing drugs, and that he just wanted to go to work," according to the release.

Gomez, listed in jail records as working at a gas station, was charged with possession of cannabis and violating the county's 2008 Child Sex Crime Prevention ordinance. He is being held on $750 bail at Orient Road Jail.