A member of the pop group Girlicious was charged Thursday with drug possession with the intent to distribute or sell after Glendale police said they found more than a dozen plastic bags of cocaine in her Gucci purse.
Natalie Mejia, 21, of Diamond Bar was arrested Tuesday night during a traffic stop in Glendale near the Ventura
Freeway. She was a passenger in a 1998 Ford Mustang that police said was speeding.
The singer had just dined at a Burbank restaurant and was running late for an airplane flight, police said. A search turned up the baggies of cocaine, police said, although the singer told police that the drugs were not hers and that she
did not know how they got there.
The driver, Peter Asencio, 28, of Burbank, whom Mejia said she had met only days earlier, also was arrested.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged him with drug possession to distribute or sell and driving with a suspended driver’s license, Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.
Glendale police are continuing their investigation, Lorenz said.
— Andrew Blankstein
Photos: Peter Asencio and Natalie Mejia. Credit: Glendale Police Department