Sunday, January 18, 2004

Pharmacist gets 5 years prison for stealing medication for sale in Nigeria

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

A Fayette woman was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for stashing over $103,000 in prescription medication at her home after she stole it from a south Fulton County pharmacy.

Helga Nosiri, 37, was also sentenced to an additional five years probation by Superior Court Judge Christopher C. Edwards. She also must pay back $20,000 of the drugs’ value to the CVS pharmacy, said Assistant District Attorney Jamie Inagawa.

Nosiri, who was a pharmacist at the CVS on Old National Highway in College Park, was mailing the drugs back to Nigeria, her homeland, for sale there, Inagawa said. She was arrested in April 2002 by the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department after an investigation revealed she was wheeling the drugs out of the store in two coolers and taking them to her home on Trolling Way in south Fayette County, officials said.

A search of the residence revealed large quantities of prescription medication, including a 1,000-count bottle of acetaminophen-codeine tablets and two 500-count bottles of hydrocodone bitartrate tablets, according to warrants for her arrest.

In August, Nosiri pled guilty to four counts of possession of a schedule III drug and one count of possession of a schedule V drug. Two other similar charges were dropped, Inagawa noted.

The sentencing was postponed while probation officials performed a pre-sentencing investigation for the court.



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