Agents: Pharmacist filled fake prescriptions, traded pills for sex
The owner of an Avalon Parkarea pharmacy illegally dispensed thousands of painkillers and exchanged some pills for sex with at least one woman, drug investigators say.
Details about the investigation into Valentine Okonkwo and Avalon Pharmacy were released Thursday after agents with the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration simultaneously raided the business and Okonkwo’s home.
Okonkwo and two of his employees were handcuffed when DEA agents arrived Thursday morning to search the pharmacy in a shopping center on South Avalon Park Boulevard.
In a neighborhood nearby, MBI agents searched the house where Okonkwo is suspected of having had sex with an admitted drug addict.
Authorities arrested Okonkwo, who has been a licensed pharmacist in Florida since 2005, after questioning him Thursday afternoon.
He is also associated with Quality Care Pharmacy on Woolco Way in Orange County, which is also under investigation.
The DEAwould not release details about its investigation into Avalon Pharmacy, but MBI’s case documents explain how several suspected drug traffickers told agents they turned to Okonkwo to fill their fake prescriptions.
Neil Callegari, who is jailed in Orange County on drug charges, told MBI agents he printed more than 230 fake prescriptions, of which 33 were filled by Okonkwo.
Authorities say Callegari and his associate Ashley Dye “sponsored” — or paid — people to see doctors and obtain prescriptions, which were then taken to Avalon Pharmacy to be filled.
Callegari told agents he also took fake prescriptions he printed on his personal computer into the pharmacy, and Okonkwo knew they were fraudulent but dispensed the drugs anyway.
A 32-year-old woman told MBI agents she met Okonkwo through Dye, when they went to the pharmacy to pass a fake prescription.
The woman, who told agents she has been an addict since she was 16, said she had sex with Okonkwo on their second date. Afterward, he gave her cash and oxycodone pills.