WINTER PARK, Fla. — Five people were arrested Wednesday after agents served search warrants at a pain clinic and at a home in Winter Park, according to officials with the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation.
Officials said agents searched the Winter Park Pain and Wellness Clinic on Granada Drive in Winter Park and the home of Eric Emerson, on Fairway Drive in Winter Park.
Emerson, the owner of the business, as well as Dr. Roland Brutus and three staff members were arrested, investigators said.
Investigators said evidence obtained in the searches showed that a majority of prescriptions for controlled substances issued by Brutus were dispensed illegally.
According to investigators, prescriptions for drugs, including oxycodone, OxyContin, Dilaudid, morphine, alprazolam, diazepam (Valium), clonazepam and Mobic, were dispensed "without a reasonable good faith belief of a medical necessity."
Investigators spent months collecting evidence to bust the clinic.
Documents obtained by Channel 9 detail what an undercover agent saw while he posed as a patient. He said an armed guard out front told him he'd have to "know the rules before entering."
Those rules included not bringing in a cellphone and having to prove you had drugs in your system through a urine test, otherwise you'd be thrown out.
The agent said he made it clear to the doctor he didn't have much pain., but they still prescribed him the potentially addictive meds.
The agent watched the clinic's owner drive to the bank several times and make large cash deposits up to $108,000 at once.
Customers showed up in droves at the clinic, which the MBI said was handing out pills by the thousands.
"Today we're seizing four or five luxury vehicles. He just got back from a trip overseas. So he's gone from rags to riches from running this illegal pain clinic," said MBI director Larry Zwieg.
Agents found $20,000 cash in the back of Emerson’s BMW and said he had $250,000 in his bank account.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for six years. All the business owners in this area have been waiting for this day,” said attorney Don VanDingenen, who works at a nearby law office.
Investigators said Emerson and Brutus operated a cash-only business and trafficked thousands of tablets and other controlled substances.
According to investigators, the business collected hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Investigators said the Florida Department of Health has served an emergency order that restricts Brutus from prescribing any controlled substances on Schedules II-IV.
Along with Emerson and Brutus, Jessica Gallo, Tameka Heard and Tara Reynolds were arrested.
Investigators said those arrested are charged with racketeering, trafficking in hydromorphone and hydrocodone over 28 grams, as well as other charges.
The MBI also ran background checks on what they say were 25 randomly selected patients from the clinic's database of more than 1,200. All 25 had criminal histories, most involving drugs.
WFTV
