The three men accused of scamming a Fair Oaks pharmacy are scheduled to enter their pleas in Sacramento Superior Court last Wednesday, Aug. 3.
James Terry Dean, 47, of Knights Landing, Kevin Lee McCullom, 41, of Sacramento and Christopher John Smith, 48, of Citrus Heights were arrested by Sacramento County sheriff’s authorities in June, when they allegedly tried to score prescription drugs from the CVS pharmacy at 5420 Dewey Dr. using falsified prescription requests.
According to a report filed then by the sheriff’s department, the three men and an unidentified witness met at the pharmacy around 5 p.m. June 23. Dean and McCullom entered the store, where Dean picked up a prescription that had been called in by an unknown party who had no authorization to make such orders. McCullom had picked up a fake prescription from the same pharmacy using the same doctor’s code two days earlier, the report stated.
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The report accused Smith of driving McCullom and the witness to the pharmacy in a stolen vehicle.
The sheriff’s department became unable to comment on the investigation when the case went federal.
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“Due to the forged prescriptions, the DEA has got involved,” sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Jason Ramos explained then.
A criminal complaint filed by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office offers a few additional details, identifying the controlled substance that defendants allegedly procured from the pharmacy as hydrocodone, a pain medication with the street name “hydro.”
The defendants are also accused of signing fictitious names to procure the prescriptions, a felony under the California Business and Professions Code.
The complaint alleges that Smith knowingly bought a stolen Chrysler that was reportedly used to drive two of the defendants to the pharmacy in.
The use of hydrocodone products increased from 6.7 million users in 2000 to more than 104 million in 2006, the last year available for data, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is currently reviewing a petition to increase the regulatory controls on hydrocodone combination products from schedule III to schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act, the agency says on its website.
A call to the DEA’s Sacramento district office was not returned before deadline and DA’s office spokeswoman Shelly Orio declined to comment on the agency’s involvement.
“We do not comment on other agencies,” she said in an email.