OxyContin Crime Round-Up
The powerful painkillers OxyContin and oxycodone continue to be in high demand among drug addicts, some of whom will do anything to get their fix once doctors catch on to their patterns of abuse. Here is a weekly round-up of OxyContin drug crimes.
Police in Biddeford, Maine, arrested Randa Nason, 24, for a June CVS robbery during which she made off with approximately 400 Oxycontin pills.
The pharmacy clerk told police that Nason walked in and claimed her boyfriends was in the store with a weapon. She faces 5-10 years in prison.
This Sunday a man wearing a Alpinestar brand motorscycle jacket robbed at gun point a Newport, Oregon, Rite Aid Pharmacy. He also had on a full facemask motorcycle helmet with a mirrored visor. The suspect was seen getting into an SUV. He made off with an undisclosed number of OxyContin pills.
In Buffalo, New York, this week at least 33 people have been arrested in a major prescription drug ring. Several Buffalo houses were raided Thursday morning The accused ringleader was Michael McCall, who reported tried to flee when police attempted to arrest him earlier in the week. McCall allegedly trained people how to fake symptoms to get prescriptions for pain medications such as Oxycontin, Oxycodone, and Lortab. A partner then sold the powerful prescription opiates from a gas station in Cheektowaga. Police say one Oxycontin pill can sell for as much as 80 dollars. They often sold the drugs to teens from the suburbs.
A Cleveland woman just missed being arrested for the forging of a prescription for OxyContin. She dropped off a prescription for 90 OxyContin pills at a CVS Pharmacy; around the same time the pharmacist had heard from another pharmacy that someone was currently passing bad prescriptions. The CVS pharmacist called the doctor, who said he did not write the prescription. He contacted the police when the woman returned, but she left before police arrived.
In Dover, Delaware, police arrested an armed robbery suspect after a week-long manhunt. Anthony is accused of stealing OxyContin from the Moore's Lake Pharmacy last Thursday morning. Police also found a gun in his car.
This week in Knoxville, Tennessee, a federal jury today convicted a businessman in a oxycodone network that ranged from Florida to Tennessee. The DEA investigation allowed themt o catch more than a dozen people who were buying opiates in Florida, where pill mills make it easy to get oxycodone and other powerful pain killers, then shipping them to West Knoxville where they are harder to obtain.
Two men in Palm Harbor, Florida, were arrested for robbing the Curlew Pharmacy on US 19. They handed a note to a pharmacy employee that said they had a weapon. The employee handed over an unspecified amount of oxycodone. The men confessed to the crime, and later admitted to another armed robbery of a CVS in Seminole.
A Suffolk, Virginia, man was arrested for tying to obtain oxycodone with a fake prescription at a Walgreens pharmacy. He has been charged with an attempt to obtain drugs by fraud.
Florida counties are trying to deal with cash-and-carry pain clinics, known as pill mills, that make it much to easy for anyone to obtain OxyContin, oxycodone, and other opiates. The number of people who died of oxycodone overdoses statewide leapt by 26 percent in 2009 according to a medical examiner's report, which some attribute to the proliferation of the shady pill mills. Oxycodone caused 1,185 deaths in Florida last year, 14 percent of all fatal overdoses in the state.