THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130322
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 36 lines
A recently fired 10-year veteran police officer has been indicted on seven counts of prescription fraud.
James Victor Bailey, 37, was indicted and surrendered to police last week. He posted bond and was released, according to Dave Hughes, a police spokesman. Prescription fraud is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Bailey, who was assigned to the crime prevention section, was fired Jan. 15 after an investigation revealed that he had violated administrative policies, police said.
``He's absolutely innocent of any criminal wrongdoing,'' Bailey's attorney, Michael F. Imprevento, said Wednesday. ``To have this man suffer consequences as the result of this would be a tragedy. . . . The outcry of support from the community and his church has been enormous.''
Imprevento said he also has appealed Bailey's termination from the police department.
An investigation by the Police Internal Affairs Unit was prompted by a citizen complaint that ``a police officer was seeing several doctors.'' A Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield fraud investigator was called in to help.
It was determined that Bailey had been to at least 20 local pharmacies, five hospitals and at least 52 doctors in 1996, according to search warrant affidavits filed in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake circuit courts.
Bailey received prescriptions for several types of pain-killing or mood-altering drugs, with pills numbering 2,200, according to the court papers.
From Aug. 1 to Dec. 2, Bailey went to 16 doctors, including 11 family and general practitioners, two orthopedic doctors, a psychiatrist, a dentist and an emergency medicine specialist, according to the court papers.
KEYWORDS: PRESCRIPTION FRAUD POLICE OFFICER CHESAPEAKE POLICE