Oxycodone sting leads to seven local arrests
SUN PHOTO BY GREG GILES
Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight answers media questions about Operation Bad Apple that led to 30 arrests related to a prescription fraud ring.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SARASOTA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE
Deputies arrest John( and wife Brenda) Weiss in their second story apartment on Miami Avenue in downtown Venice. The couple and 28 others were arrested this week in a prescription fraud sting.
PHOTO BY SARASOTA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE
Nokomis resident Jeffrey Gradert is arrested in Operation Bad Apple.
JEFFREY GRADERT
SANDRA IZYKOWSKA
GARRETT LANGOWSKI
AMANDA LONG
BRENDA WEISS
JOHN WEISS
SAMANTHA WALTON
It wasn’t a concerned doctor or the watchful eyes of employees at Englewood’s Apple Pharmacy who filled dozens of identical prescriptions for oxycodone over a 3-month period, nor the $700 the clients paid in cash that tipped authorities off to a prescription fraud ring spanning three counties.
It was the neighbors who called law enforcement after seeing “undesirables” and others who looked out of place lingering in the parking lot around the pharmacy.