As Northern Virginia law enforcement officials racked up arrests in three oxycodone-distribution rings this spring, they noticed some connections. There were forged prescriptions with “striking similarities,” court records say. Stolen Drug Enforcement Administration information for the same doctors was used to obtain the drugs. The same people were filling the forged prescriptions.
Now, authorities say they know why those three rings’ methods of illegally obtaining and distributing the painkillers were so similar: They all got their start by working with the same three people.
A Haymarket husband and wife, 45-year-old Kurt Reighard and 24-year-old Brooke Reighard, and her cousin, 29-year-old Marc Harding, of Broad Run, are charged in federal court in Alexandria with conspiracy to distribute oxycodone.
Those three, court documents say, have filled thousands of fraudulent prescriptions for painkillers over the past four years by digitally forging legitimate prescriptions. They sold the drugs to others, and some of those purchasers later began fraudulently obtaining and distributing the drugs as well, according to court records.
Those oxycodone distributors “learned aspects of the illicit craft of forging false prescriptions” from the Reighards and Harding, who were part of “an original core conspiracy,” a criminal complaint says.
Attorneys for Brooke Reighard and Harding declined to comment on the case. No attorney was listed in court records for Kurt Reighard.
Court records say their oxycodone ring expanded into three subrings, which were based in Manassas Park, Bristow, Manassas and Woodbridge. In total, 17 people have been arrested since February on federal charges in connection with those drug rings. Most have pleaded guilty, court records show.
The complaint says the Reighard and Harding ring got started filling fake prescriptions after Harding replicated a legitimate Adderall prescription he had received. They scanned the prescription, altered the drug information and had it filled, court records say. Investigators believe the ring has operated since about June 2007.
The Reighards and Harding started by obtaining Vicodin and Percocet — Brooke Reighard eventually got the nickname “Brookocet” — according to the complaint. They later turned to stronger drugs, including Roxicodone and OxyContin, the complaint says.
The three began heavily enlisting others to fill prescriptions after Virginia began requiring pharmacies to check identifications last year, the complaint says.
The three are in custody pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
