Five charged with nurse for drug fraud

Staff Writer

Five additional arrests have been announced in what authorities say was a woman's complicated and temporarily successful effort to obtain a constant and illegal flow of hydrocodone-based cough syrup over a seven-month period.

Jennifer Brooke King of Marlon Street in Thomaston faces 16 counts of fraudulently obtaining Schedule III Narcotics. In a press release detailing the case, investigators from the Narcotics Task Force allege more than 150 prescriptions of the drug were illegally obatined by King with the help of other suspects.

Charged in the case in addition to King are Kelly Barron, 422 S. Green St; Lisa Gulledge, 5274 U.S. 19 South; Melissa Knight, 1086 Pickard Road; Amy Jones Gerard, 503 Potemkin Way; and Darlene Hamon, 338 Bonds Road. All are charged with two or three counts of fraudulently obtaining Schedule III Narcotics.

Narcotics Task Force agents said King, a nurse, would call in prescriptions to pharmacies, falsely claiming they were approved by her employer, Thomaston Pediatrics. The prescriptions would be

in the names of the minor children of the other women charged in the case. The women would then obtain the prescriptions and turn over all or a portion to King, who, according to Task Force agents, consumed the drugs.

Some of the suspects are also being investigated for illegally obtaining Medicaid reimbursements for the cost of the prescriptions.

NTF Commander Dan Greathouse said the investigation is far from over and said "it's possible" additional people would be charged and "probable" additional counts would be lodged against those already charged.

"This case is quite involved and we are still working," Greathouse said. "There is a tremendous amount of paperwork in a case like this. She had a really good set-up that was hard to detect because the prescriptions were spread out in several pharmacies all over town."