Articles Posted in Drug Crimes

New Florida Governor Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi have indicated they plan to target doctors and pharmaceutical manufacturers who, according to them, distribute pain pills such as Oxycodone and Oxycontin to drug abusers and drug dealers. The recently announced the formation of a new strike force for that purpose and applied $800,000 in unused federal grant money to fund the new strike force. The believe Florida is the a haven for pill mills or pain clinics which disburse these pain pills that are ultimately abused by drug users or re-sold on the street. They state that more Oxycodone has been distributed in Florida than all other states combined, and many of those pills are distributed to people who move them to other states.

According to newly elected Attorney General Bondi, the pill mill issue “is the mission of [her] life right now.”

We have seen the effects of this emphasis on pill mills or pain clinics. Many pain clinics have been shut down in Florida and many people from the employees to the doctors to the owners have been arrested on state and federal charges. Pain clinics are under tremendous scrutiny right now, and many people who assume they have done nothing wrong are being investigated and arrested. If you have any questions about owning, operating or working with a pain clinic in some capacity, feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

The governor of Kentucky recently signed a new law that was designed to save money, decrease the number of prison inmates and reduce crime by reducing prison time for non-violent offenders who possess illegal drugs. The money saved from the lower prison inmate population is diverted to drug rehabilitation programs for those who need them. According to the governor, the new law is expected to save $422 million over the next ten years (although it is unclear where that number comes from).

Other states facing severe budget deficits have also discussed ways in which they can save money by reviewing the criminal justice and prison systems. Florida may follow suit after Governor Scott promised to take bold steps to save money in a variety of ways. Florida has the third largest prison population with approximately 100,000 prisoners in the state system. That prison population has grown over the past five years despite a declining crime rate. Florida also has a $2.4 billion dollar budget to deal with its prisoner population.

Florida currently has a significant gap in its budget. Governor Scott has promised to cut $1 billion from the corrections budget over the next seven years. It seems likely that Governor Scott will try to implement similar reforms to those in Kentucky that focus on fewer prisoners due to simple drug possession charges with an emphasis on attempting to treat non-violent drug offenders so they do not continue to re-offend and go back to prison at a significant and unnecessary cost to the state.

Law enforcement officials in Jacksonville, Florida raided the home of a 91 year old woman searching for marijuana plants, according to an article on News4Jax.com. Apparently, they found 19 marijuana plants in the home near Dupont Middle School in the San Jose area. It was not clear why nineteen marijuana plants caused enough concern to have Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) agents bust into the home of a 91 year old woman with health problems. In any case, the elderly woman was not arrested, but her two caretakers were.

One issue that arises in a situation like this is who is criminally liable for illegal activity in a residence. When a fairly small amount of drugs or a gun is found in a house, one cannot assume that everyone who lives in the home, or happens to be in the home at the time, has some connection to the drugs or gun. To prove a possession charge, the police and the state have to prove a connection between the particular suspect and the illegal activity. Marijuana growing operations may be different since they are not as easily concealed as a gun or bag of drugs. It depends on the size of the marijuana grow operation and how many plants are involved. However, the police and the state still have to prove that a suspect knew about the marijuana plants and had some relationship with the marijuana growing operation or the marijuana plants. In this case, even though the elderly woman owned the house, there appears to be some evidence that she did not know about the plants or what kind of plants they were. In that case, she could not be charged with possession or cultivation of marijuana.

Methamphetamine labs, typically houses, apartments or trailers where people use various chemicals and equipment to make methamphetamine, are on the increase in St. Johns County, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office. In the article, the St. Johns County sergeant discusses three arrests related to three separate St. Johns County meth labs in one week and one call where a house burned down due to a meth lab in St. Johns County several months ago. In order to deal with the problem, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office is training more officers for methamphetamine lab detection and investigation. Other counties in Northeast Florida are also experiencing a lot of methamphetamine related cases including Duval County, Clay County and Flagler County.

Like cocaine, marijuana and illegal pill cases, one of the primary ways the police learn of meth labs and meth dealers is by talking to the people who know the people involved. These discussions often occur after someone gets arrested and “flips” on someone else to try and get a better deal with the state. However, because methamphetamine is often made on-site, meth labs offer another method for police to learn of their existence. Meth labs typically create strong and distinctive chemical fumes that can be smelled by neighbors or others nearby who often alert police to the suspected meth lab. A complaint to police of a potential meth lab based on the smell is often the first step in a meth lab investigation.

Pain clinics in Florida have become big business over the last few years. Billboards and other advertisements for pain clinics have popped up all over Florida. However, along with their recent popularity, scrutiny by law enforcement has followed. Local, state and federal police and law enforcement agencies have spent a lot of time investigating pain clinics and arresting anyone and everyone they feel is involved in pain clinics that are not following the laws in Florida. Primarily, they are focusing on the pain clinics where they allege the facility is just giving numerous pain pills to people in assembly line fashion without conducting the proper examinations and diagnosis procedures. Police allege these patients are then abusing the pain pills and/or selling them on the street for a significant profit.

We have been involved with individuals, and represented clients, from various pain clinics in Florida ranging from the regular employees to doctors conducting examinations to the owners of the pain clinics. When law enforcement goes after a pain clinic, they typically arrest people at all levels of affiliation with the pain clinic.

There are, of course, legitimate pain clinics that provide a valuable and necessary service to people in need of treatment and pain medication who may not be fortunate enough to have good health insurance policies. However, as the police focus more and more on pain clinics of all types, some of the good pain clinics and many of the innocent people involved with them may get pulled into a police investigation and face criminal prosecution.

Foxnews.com recently published an article about a raid of a suspected “pill mill” where the reporter accompanied the police on the raid. In Jacksonville and other cities in Florida, local, state and federal law enforcement officials have been targeting pain clinics and doctors whom they suspect are providing pain medicine to people without performing the proper professional practices. We have seen many examples of police, DEA and FBI going after various clinics and making a multitude of arrests. They will often send undercover agents into these places who try to get a large number of pills without the proper examination and medical diagnosis. The government alleges that certain pain clinics and doctors are distributing these pain pills without spending the appropriate quality and quantity of time with the patients to properly examine and diagnose them to determine if they actually need the medicine. The government then says that the patients turn around and abuse the pain pills and/or sell them at a significant premium.

There are many pending cases involving pain clinics in Florida. These cases often target the employees working at the pain clinics, the doctors associated with the pain clinics and the owners profiting from them, even where the owners may have little contact with the actual facility. These prosecutions have significant ramifications. Serious felony charges are being brought that potentially result in serious time in prison. Doctors are losing their authority to prescribe medicine and their medical licenses.

There are, of course, many doctors, employees and executives who are running perfectly legitimate operations to treat people who are in need of pain management. Like many cases that involve relatively new businesses, new issues and an increased focus by law enforcement, it is not always clear who is breaking the law and who is providing an important medical service to people in need. When law enforcement casts the net wide to address what they see as an emerging problem, many times people in the latter category get caught up with those who actually should be charged with a crime and prosecuted.

As criminal defense lawyers in the Jacksonville, Florida area, we have seen many more possession, sale and trafficking cases that involve pills such as Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Oxycontin and other controlled substances that are legal with a valid prescription. The laws in Florida can be very harsh for such crimes with potentially long prison sentences for relatively few of these pills.

While it may seem obvious, when a person is charged with possession of pills, or trafficking pills based on possession of a large number of pills, having a valid prescription for the pills is a defense to the crime. In a recent case near Jacksonville, Florida, a woman was charged with trafficking in Hydrocodone for illegal possession of more than 14 grams but less than 28 grams of Lortab, a controlled substance. The state alleged that an undercover officer went to the defendant’s house and obtained 30 pills of Lortab from the defendant. Based on that, the defendant was charged with trafficking in Hydrocodone. The defendant argued that she had a prescription for the Lortab and only let the undercover officer borrow the pills. The defendant expected the undercover officer to return the pills once the undercover officer got her own prescription.

The defendant was convicted of trafficking in Hydrocodone but appealed the conviction because the jury was not informed that the defendant’s prescription for the Lortab was a defense to the crime. The Court reversed the conviction. The state argued that proof that the defendant possessed the pills was sufficient to convict her of trafficking in Hydrocodone. However, a valid prescription for the pills is a defense to the charge, and if there is evidence that the defendant had such a prescription, the jury must be informed that they can find the defendant not guilty if they believe the evidence of the valid prescription.

Clay County police raided the Total Medical Express clinic off of Blanding Boulevard in Orange Park, Florida and made several arrests of some of its patients and an office manager, according to an article on FirstCoastnews.com. The police allege that the pain clinic was unlicensed and was giving out narcotic drugs like Oxycontin to people without performing the proper medical procedures. Police claim that people come from all over the southeast, pay cash for the pills without the proper medical exam and diagnosis and then use and/or sell the pills on the street. Clay County police indicated they expect to make more arrests relating to Total Medical Express in the near future.

Going after pain clinics has been a major focus of the police here in Duval County, Clay County and Nassau County and other parts of Florida by both local police and federal law enforcement. As abuse of pain pills has become more popular and arrests for illegal possession of pain pills have increased at a much greater rate than more traditional drug crimes such as marijuana, cocaine, crack and methamphetamine, law enforcement officials are focusing on the source of these pills. Whenever they get word that a pain clinic has a long line of people who are getting these pills after very brief appointments, the police are likely going to start an investigation into the facility’s practices.

As lawyers handling criminal cases in the Jacksonville, North Florida and Southeast Georgia area, we have seen a lot of these cases over the last couple of years. The police are not just arresting patients; they are arresting the pain clinic employees, doctors and anyone with an ownership interest in the pain clinics. Under Florida law, it does not take very many pills to be subject to very serious penalties. As a result, just about all of these cases, from the patients to the office manager to the doctor to the owner, can become very serious.