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Jessie Gianni. Photo courtesy Colorado Springs Police Department.
A man arrested earlier this week nearly closes out a prescription drug ring discovered in 2015 that led to 25 people being charged.
Jessie Gianni, 26, was arrested late Sunday on four warrants as he was leaving his motel room on South Nevada Avenue.
Court documents revealed one of those warrants was related to a syndicate responsible for filing 97 fake prescriptions and illegally taking 11,570 tablets from local pharmacies in Colorado Springs. Gianni and 24 others were accused in the 2015 plot, according to court documents.
Until Sunday, Gianni was among three culprits on the run from those charges. The remaining suspects have since been convicted, most of whom accepted plea deals to possession of a controlled substance and were sentenced to 18 months of probation.
The syndicate was discovered in June 2015 after a Walmart pharmacy uncovered 35 fraudulent prescriptions for Oxycodone, Methadone, OxyContin, Norco, Xanax and Ambien. All had been written on a prescription pad from the same local nurse practitioner, court documents said.
Further investigation uncovered another 62 fraudulent prescriptions under the same name at pharmacies across the city, bringing the total to 97.
In all, the pharmacies had distributed 11,160 tablets of Oxycodone of varying strength, 90 tablets of Methadone, 120 tablets of Norco, 90 tablets of Xanax, 60 tablets of OxyContin, 20 tablets of Prednisone and 30 tablets of Ambien.
The nurse practitioner said the drugs were prescribed without her knowledge or permission. Most of the names used on the prescriptions weren’t even listed as patients, documents said.
One of those fictitious patients was Gianni, police said.
He had filled a prescription for 120 tablets of Oxycodone the month before, documents said.
Police later learned that the nurse practitioner had recently fired employee Tasha Still, who was linked back to the 97 prescriptions under 52 different names.
Still has since been convicted of five counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or deceit and was sentenced to 45 days in jail, 250 community service hours and three years of probation. Derek Foster and Jenessa Krogstad also were convicted of obtaining the drugs by fraud and were sentenced to jail time and probation.
Luis Corchado and Devonta Roberson remain wanted.
In addition to the drug charges, Gianni was wanted related to allegations of second-degree burglary in which he was accused of breaking into 13 different storage units during the fall and taking the contents.
He also is accused of theft, driving under restraint, attempting to influence a public servant, false reporting and motor vehicle theft.
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