Doctor indicted in federal Rx probe

A Little Rock doctor accused of writing more than 100 fraudulent painkiller prescriptions in Lonoke County has been indicted as a result of Operation Pilluted, a federal crackdown on illegal trafficking in prescription medications.

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The indictment, handed up Wednesday, raises the number of central Arkansas defendants charged as a result of the probe to 113, U.S. Attorney Chris Thyer said.

Richard Duane Johns, 49, sold oxycodone prescriptions for $500 apiece, many of them written for people he had never met, Thyer, the chief prosecutor for the federal Eastern District of Arkansas, stated in a news release.

Johns is accused in the indictment with 18 co-defendants of participating in a conspiracy to distribute the painkiller. The charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.

"As alleged in the indictment, the doctor writing these fraudulent prescriptions is no different than a common, street-level drug dealer on the street, and should be treated as such," Thyer said in the statement announcing the charges.

The investigation into Johns, an internist in private practice, came to light in May with his arrest in Lonoke County by sheriff's deputies on 187 counts of fraudulent practices, with each count carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

That investigation began in November when deputies began looking into the overdose death of an unnamed man in Cabot.

Johns is currently free on $50,000 bond on the state charges.

The prescriptions attributed to Johns in Lonoke County alone totaled about 16,830 oxycodone pills, and those individual tablets, sometimes sold under the trade name OxyContin, could be sold on the street for $30 each, according to the Thyer statement.

The conspiracy attributed to Johns also operated in White and Pulaski counties, Thyer said.

The prosecutor stated that several of the defendants accused of working with Johns have admitted buying prescriptions from him as far back as 2011.

"As a society we have granted certain health care professionals the right to prescribe and use highly addictive drugs to treat their patients. When that right is abused, we will aggressively pursue those health care professionals as the criminals that they are," Thyer said.

"I am pleased that this doctor and his network have been stopped, and this office will continue to target the doctors, pharmacists, and other health care providers who illegally allow these dangerous and highly addictive drugs to end up on our streets."

Operation Pilluted, part of a national effort to target "rogue" practitioners, pharmacists and others who are required to be licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, was launched in January 2014 across the federal drug agency's New Orleans District of Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, the news release stated.

The investigation also includes efforts to heighten community awareness about the dangers of prescription-drug abuse.

"Prescription drug abuse is an extremely serious problem, not just in Arkansas, but nationwide," said Joseph Shepard with the drug agency's Little Rock office.

"DEA and our law enforcement partners will continue to investigate professionals in the medical field who operate as drug peddlers," Shepard is quoted as saying in Thyer's news release.

"Those persons who disregard their ethical and legal obligations while dispensing pharmaceuticals will be forced to bear the consequences of their actions."

The first two Arkansas indictments came in May and named 46 defendants, including doctors, pharmacists and nurses, with illegal drug trafficking.

With the latest round of charges returned by the grand jury, Operation Pilluted has produced six Arkansas indictments with 113 defendants.

Four doctors, including Johns, have been indicted. Prosecutors dismissed charges against a fifth physician, Jerry Scott Reifeiss of Conway, in June.

Indicted with Johns are Jason Ray Beaudry, 29, Searcy; Dustin R. Bullock, 27, Searcy; Vanessa E. Byrd, 29, Ward; Randy James Byrd, 28, Ward; Donna Michelle Cearns, 28, Cabot; Aron Scot Cochran, 26, Searcy; Scotty Wayne Ferren Jr., 25, Searcy; Charles Lester Mason, 69, Searcy; Megan Brooke McConnell, 25, Judsonia; Gregory Chase McConnell, 24, Judsonia; Joshua David Ringer, 29, Searcy; James Vernon Spiker Jr., 28, Judsonia; David Larue Scroggins, 56, Cabot; Marissa Donann Scroggins, 29, Cabot; Christopher David Scroggins, 36, Cabot; James Jason Washam, 38, Scott; Jerri D. Washam, 33, Scott; and Christine Marie Zeman, 46, Lonoke.

Metro on 09/03/2015

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