Read more: Local, Melanie Poston, Jaime Poston, Heather Owens, Lisa Marlow, John Jackson, Prescription Drugs, Sentenced, Painkillers, Fred's Pharmacy
A mother and daughter from Johnsonville are among those sentenced in a federal prescription drug ring case.
Acting United States Attorney Kevin F. McDonald stated that Melanie D. Poston, 35, her daughter Jaime Brooke Poston, 20, Heather Nicole Owens, 19, Lisa Marie Marlow, 37, and John Henry Jackson, 48, all of Johnsonville, South Carolina, were sentenced in federal court in Florence for conspiring to distribute controlled substances.
United States District Judge Terry L. Wooten sentenced Melanie Poston to 125 months in federal prison, Marlowe and Owens to 51 months each, Jaime Brooke Poston to five months, and Jackson to a probationary term of three years.
Melanie Poston worked as a medical assistant at a physician's office in Hemingway, and in 2007 began writing and forging fraudulent prescriptions for powerful pain killers and other narcotics. She recruited others to have the prescriptions filled, including her daughter Jaime Poston, Marlowe, Owens, and Jackson.
Members of the group used some of the drugs, which included Endocet, Percocet, Lorcet, Lortab, Vicodin, Xanax, and Valium, and sold the rest to users on the street. Approximately 80,000 doses were attributed to the group over the two-year conspiracy.
Another defendant, Rebecca Denise Lynch, 28, worked at Fred's Pharmacy in Johnsonville, and has admitted her role in having the illegal prescriptions filled. She is scheduled to be sentenced later this week. The pharmacy has since closed. The investigation of others involved is ongoing.
The case was investigated by agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the DEA's Diversion Unit. Assistant United States Attorney William E. Day, II, of the Florence office handled the case.
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