Florida Keys cops acting on a tip find gun and lots of ammo hidden in man’s home

Florida Keys deputies working off a tip served a search warrant on the home of a man who’s on the state’s sexual offenders registry and said they found a handgun and thousands of rounds of ammunition of varying calibers hidden throughout the property Monday.

Scott Stewart MacQuarrie, 51, was convicted in October 2002 in Collier County on a felony charge of having sex with a minor teenage girl, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s sex offender registry. As a person convicted of a felony, he’s not allowed to own guns or ammunition.

Deputies received information that he had weapons inside his home in the Middle Keys city of Marathon, according to a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office press release.

While serving the warrant on the 1700 Overseas Highway home, they found a Taurus 9 mm pistol with ammunition, about 1,500 5.56-caliber rifle bullets, several hundred rounds of .308-caliber rifle ammunition and about 1,000 shotgun shells, said Adam Linhardt, sheriff’s office spokesman.

Deputies found the gun and ammunition hidden in a “secret” compartment in the bathroom ceiling and in the shop area of of the property, Linhardt said.

Deputies also arrested a woman in the home, 30-year-old Shawnna Kaye Conerly, after finding she had Xanax and alprazolam pills on her, but didn’t have prescriptions for the meds, according to the sheriff’s office.

Both are in county jail. Conerly is also facing an obstruction of justice charge and is being held on a total bond of $47,000, according to the sheriff’s office. She’s scheduled to appear before a judge on April 24.

Bond has not been set for MacQuarrie, whose first court appearance is scheduled for May 2, according to sheriff’s office jail records.