JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 22-year-old man is accused of balling up pieces of bread and trying to sell them as crack cocaine to senior citizens in a Florida nursing home.

Investigators said Hillmon Arnold tried to sell the fake cocaine at the Golden Retreat Center on Moncrief Road.
"He was trying to sell these pieces of crack for $5 apiece to these elderly citizens and, clearly, trying to take advantage of them because he knew they received their checks on the 10th of every month," JSO spokeswoman Melissa Bujeda said.
Police said Arnold ran when officers approached him in the parking lot of the facility.


When officers caught up with him, they said they found a pill bottle in this waistband that contained seven or eight aspirin and something that looked like a rock of crack cocaine -- but it wasn't, WJXT reported.
"He actually admitted he was trying to sell artificial crack cocaine to support his own drug habit," Bujeda said.


Even though what he was selling was not an illegal substance, he was still breaking a law: sale/manufacture/delivery or possession of a counterfeit control substance -- a third-degree felony.
"Because the person on the other end has no idea that it's fake or real, so whether you're attempting to sell a fake or real drug, when you're trying to sell that and you are leading the person to believe it's a real drug, you're just as guilty," Bujeda said.
In addition to the counterfeit drug charge, Arnold was also charged with resisting arrest without violence. He was booked into the Duval County jail and held on $52,506 bond.