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Twenty-seven Flagler County residents were charged Wednesday, July 11, with prescription pill-related offenses as part of Operation Pain Management, an eight-month investigation targeting North Florida street-level prescription drug traffickers.

The operation, headed by the state-sponsored North Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Tri-County Narcotics Task Force, included charges filed against 103 individuals and seizure of more than 1,500 prescription pills. Participating agencies were Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns sheriff’s offices, the Palatka Police Department, the St. Augustine Beach Police Department, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Homeland Security Investigations and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The most common pills seized were oxycodone and roxicodone, with most drugs being sold for $1 per milligram and with pills ranging from 15 to 30 milligrams.

Flagler County Sheriff Donald Fleming said that it is important that these individuals are off the streets.

“Not only is this person buying or selling the drug, this person is committing all the crimes in our counties,” Fleming said. “These are the people that are robbing our cars; these are the people who are breaking into houses. … These are the types of crimes that are being committed to feed a drug habit.”

But the job is far from over.

“We in law enforcement aren’t so naive that we think we have eradicated the problem, either locally or in our region,” Fleming said. “We know that there will be others that come in and try to replace those we have taken off the street. This is one reason the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the community’s support in fighting this nationwide epidemic. … Together we can make this community very unattractive to criminals.”

Of the 103 individuals charged, FDLE special agent Dominick Pape pointed out that they come from all walks of life, economic backgrounds and age groups: The oldest was 71, the youngest 17.

Seventh Judicial State Attorney R.J. Larizza said this operation is not a racketeering scenario.

“We’re dealing with street-level and mid-level dealers,” he said. “Some of them may have been selling their own prescriptions. They may have gotten the pills from somebody else and then resold them. … (They are) selling these prescription drugs for individual reasons, but they’re out there corrupting the community, and we can’t have that.”

Above all, Pape said the operation lays the foundation for future ops.

“These are 103 people with brand new pieces of information that we are going to now utilize,” he said. “We’re not done. This is Phase 1. Out of all these hundreds of people, several will hopefully give us that next level — will give us that dispensing doctor, will give us the pharmacy. You have to start somewhere.”

Pills seized during operation
Dilaudid — 45
hydrocodone — 236
hydromorphone — 51
Lortab — 31
methadone — 51
morphine — 22
oxycodone — 508
oxycontin — 5
Percocet — 142
roxicodone — 353
Xanax — 97
TOTAL — 1,541

The scene in Bunnell
As officers turned the corner onto South Chapel Street, in Bunnell, the scene was another world from the previous warrant services in Palm Coast. At 8:30 a.m. units had already made arrests in the neighborhood and residents had lined the streets, gathered at the corners and posted in chairs on their front porches — except for at the house of Cleo Higgins, the subject of the warrant. An empty chair sat in front of the door at her residence. Higgins was arrested later that morning at a relative’s house.

Flagler County residents charged
Name — Age — City — Charge
Bolton, Nicole — 35 — Palm Coast —Trafficking in controlled substance (hydrocodone)
Bruyette, Stanley — 45 — Bunnell — Trafficking schedule II controlled substance
Gordon, Jimmie — 45 — Palm Coast — Sale of alprazolam
Harrison, Ricky — 25 — Bunnell — Sale of a controlled substance (oxycodone)
Heard, Judith — 48 — Palm Coast — Sale of new legend drug / Sale of oxycodone
Higgenbotham, Harold — 48 — Bunnell — Sale of controlled substance (oxycodone)
Higgins, Cleo — 29 — Bunnell — Trafficking in schedule II controlled substance (oxycodone)
Hubbert, Enos — 41 — Bunnell — Trafficking in oxycodone
Johnsen, Jakob — 22 — Palm Coast — Sale of schedule II substance (hydromorphone)
Johnson, Samuel E. — 49 — Palm Coast — Sale of oxycodone
Jones, Brandon — 20 — Palm Coast — Sale of oxycodone / trafficking in oxycodone 14-28 grams
Jones, Cozy —18 — Palm Coast — Sale of oxycodone
Lacy, Kimberly — 44 — Bunnell —Sale of oxycodone
Lalomia, Corey — 20 — Palm Coast — Sale of controlled substance
Martin, Tommy — 56 — Flagler Beach — Sale of hydromorphine and Xanax
Mobley, Arthur — 41— Bunnell — Trafficking oxycodone
Molica, Angela — 36 — Palm Coast — Sale of oxycodone
Ostrovskiy, Andrey — 26 — Palm Coast — Sale of schedule II controlled substance (hydromorphone)
Phillips, Charles — 24 — Bunnell — Sale of schedule II controlled substance (oxycodone)
Price, Forrest — 29 — Palm Coast — Sale of schedule II controlled substance (oxycodone)
Rogers, Charles — 21 — Palm Coast — Sale of Schedule IV controlled substance (alprazolam)
Roscoe, Ronald — 43 — Palm Coast — Trafficking oxycodone / sale of new legend drug
Scorsone, Christine — 40 — Palm Coast — Trafficking in hydrocodone
Smith, Brittni — 19 — Bunnell — Sale of schedule IV controlled substance (alprazolam)
Smith, Tyran — 25 — Bunnell — Trafficking oxycodone
Thomas, George — 37 — Palm Coast — Sale of schedule II controlled substance
Thorp, Simon — 32 — Palm Coast — Sale of schedule II substance (hydromorphone)

Email shanna@palmcoastobserver.com.

 

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