ST. GEORGE — A St. George woman was arrested Saturday and charged with five third-degree felonies after allegedly creating fraudulent prescriptions, taking them to three different St. George pharmacies and attempting to have them filled.
Officers responded to a report of a prescription fraud case at Stapley Pharmacy in St. George, where an alert pharmacy employee had received a printed prescription for 85 Percocet that appeared to be fake, according to a probable cause statement written by St. George Police Officer James Wittwer in support of the arrest.
After 29-year-old Jamey Lynn Bracken tried to have the prescription filled at Stapley Pharmacy, the statement said, the employee contacted the doctor who allegedly signed the prescription. The doctor told the pharmacy employee he had never issued the prescription and that it was a fake.
The employee told police he was aware of the pharmacy at Harmon’s Grocery in St. George also having a fake prescription from Bracken, according to the statement. Additionally, the employee told police he found on the computer system that Bracken had recently filled prescriptions at Brent’s Pharmacy, and he thought they might also be altered or forged.
Officers responded to the Harmon’s pharmacy, the statement said, where they were shown another fake prescription, also given to pharmacy employees by Bracken.
Officers then collected two fraudulent prescriptions from Bracken at Brent’s Pharmacy in St. George. According to the statement, the two fraudulent prescriptions at Brent’s Pharmacy had the quantity amounts changed from 10 to 65 and from 35 to 85.
“I contacted the doctor on all prescriptions, and he stated that he never prescribes more than ten pills,” Wittwer wrote in the statement. “The prescriptions were altered.”
During an interview with Wittwer, Bracken admitted she created the printed prescription presented at Stapley Pharmacy and signed the doctor’s name on it, the statement said. She also admitted to changing the amounts on the two other prescriptions.
“She stated on the last one she found it in the garbage can and pulled it out and filled it out,” Wittwer wrote. “She also stated she signed the doctor’s name on that one.”
Bracken was arrested and booked into the Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility.
She was charged with four third-degree felonies related to the fraudulent prescriptions and one third-degree felony for possession or use of a controlled substance.
She is scheduled to make her initial court appearance on Friday.
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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Dang junkie.