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CAPE CORAL, Fla. –
Police busted a pharmacist for allegedly stealing pills from his store.
Cody Bennett worked in Bradenton but reportedly stashed all the drugs at his home in Cape Coral.
Bennett was a licensed pharmacist at Manatee Discount Pharmacy in Manatee County.
On Tuesday, Cape Coral police seized hundreds of narcotics pills from his El Dorado Parkway East home.
His colleagues reported 517 pills of narcotics inventory missing earlier this month.
His bosses told authorities that they discovered on surveillance cameras that Bennett was stealing Oxycodone, Adderall amphetamines from the store’s supply closets.
Authorities tracked Bennett back to Cape Coral. Inside his home, they found 19 pill bottles worth of stolen medication hidden in Bennett’s shirt pockets in his closet. Officers also found pills in the pants he was wearing and inside his car.
Bennett admitted to police that he had been stealing pills from the pharmacy since September.
“Sometimes opportunity does do that to you. He was a pharmacist so he was right around it, he could take it,” Bennett’s neighbor, Debbie Cooper, said. “I can’t believe he got away with it this long.”
“It probably is very tempting when you see the cash you could make real quick. I’m kind of shocked that somebody, as trusted as a pharmacist, would be stealing narcotics and drugs that people need,” said another neighbor, Rena Paterna. “People are in pain and they need the medication and if he’s stealing it then they’re not getting it.”
Cody Bennett is facing three different drug charges. He is currently out on bond.
The Florida Department of Health lists his pharmacist license as still active and has no history in Florida of receiving disciplinary action.