A Covington woman was arrested Saturday afternoon while trying to pick up a forged prescription for painkillers and charged in connection with at least three other forged prescriptions, according to the Covington Police Department public information log.
Michele Hutnick, 42, was arrested and charged with four counts of forgery in the first degree, misdemeanors, and four counts of attaining dangerous drugs by fraud, also misdemeanors.
The forgery was discovered and reported to police Saturday morning when a CVS pharmacist called the doctor's office to check a prescription for liquid Tussionex, a liquid form of hydrocodone which she researched online at WebMD, and 40 tablets of Amoxicillin, an antibiotic, supposedly called-in by a nurse on Friday.
The pharmacist learned the nurse did not call in that prescription and that Hutnick had three previous prescriptions in her file at CVS that had been supposedly called-in by that nurse, for varying amounts of Loritab, a painkiller.
CPD Officer Eric Almond was notified when Hutnick arrived to pick up the prescription later that day, just before 1 p.m., at the CVS on U.S. Highway 278 in Covington.
When he began to ask if she had called the prescription using a nurse's name, she allegedly said, "I called it in because I don't have the money to get the medicine I need."
She reportedly told Almond she had just lost her job and didn't have health insurance. According to the report, she was quickly looking around and said she needed to use the bathroom right away.
Hutnick was handcuffed, arrested and taken to the CPD station, where she admitted calling in the prescriptions using the nurse's name. She also allegedly said she had called-in several other prescriptions of Loritab throughout 2008 but could not remember the dates or times.
According to the report, Hutnick said she had simply called CVS and left a message saying what medication she needed on the phone message system.
She told Almond she intended to pay the full fee of the mediations she had intended to pick up.
