He left drugs and a loaded handgun in his motel room. Also, his 1-month-old baby boy.

Convicted drug dealer Lucius Brown knew his Lake Worth motel room would be searched after his parking lot arrest for misdemeanor marijuana possession. But Brown’s first phone call wasn’t to someone who would sweep the room for the crack cocaine, marijuana, fentanyl or semi-automatic .38 handgun he’d left there.

It was to the mother of his 1-month-old son. Brown had left the baby boy alone on the bed of the room and wanted her to get to the newborn before Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office saw his neglect.

Brown’s going to prison, but not for child neglect — at least, not yet. That case is pending in Palm Beach County Court. All of the above comes from Brown’s admission of facts on his guilty plea in federal court to possession of drugs with intent to distribute and being a felon in possession of a firearm. When he’s sentenced Jan. 31, Brown will get at least 15 years on the latter charge.

He became a convicted felon in 2004, when two counts of possession of cocaine with intent to sell, manufacture or deliver sent him to prison for 16 months. Brown returned to the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections in 2009 on the same coke possession with intent charge, aggravated assault with a weapon and being a felon in possession of a gun. That cost him three years, four months of his life.

Then, on June 8, Brown sped down a street in someone else’s Chevrolet Monte Carlo with darkly tinted windows, according to his admission of facts. After the Monte Carlo passed an unmarked PBSO car, deputies followed the car to the parking lot of a Lake Worth Budget Inn.

Deputies found 1.2 grams of marijuana on Brown and a key for room No. 12 of the Budget Inn. Brown and his passenger, “G.G.” in the court documents, were put in the back of a marked patrol car that had video equipment.

“In the video, Brown asks G.G. to get in contact with someone who can get his baby from his motel room,” the admission of facts says. “Brown is also seen and heard stating to G.G. that “I got my gun in there,” referring to the motel room where his baby was.”

When Brown got taken to the PBSO substation on charges of misdemeanor marijuana possession and driving on a suspended license, he said he needed to make a phone call. He told PBSO he’d left his son in the motel room, but with a friend. He needed to call the child’s mother.

He got hold of the woman, “C.G.” But when she got to the motel, she told deputies, “she spoke to Brown over the phone and he advised her that their baby was in the motel room alone.”

That’s all that was necessary for the manager to let deputies into room No. 12. They found cocaine and marijuana out on a desk and the newborn face down on the bed.

A later search of the room turned up two pieces of crack cocaine, 11 small plastic baggies and one large, plastic baggie of fentanyl, $80 cash and, in the desk, a drawstring backpack with a F.E.G. Model SAPS .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol with six rounds inside and a hollowpoint round in the chamber.

The gun had been made in Hungary, imported by SSME Deutsche Waffen, sold by West Palm Beach-based German Sales Promotion Corp. to a Coconut Creek resident.

This story was originally published November 12, 2018 at 11:48 AM.