An Oak Lawn police detective caught a woman in the act of picking up phony doctor’s prescriptions that she had phoned in herself at a local drug store on March 29, reports said.
Michelle Parrilli, 43, of the 14000 block of Aspen Street in Orland Park, was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance.
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responded to a “deceptive practice in progress” call at Barcus Pharmacy at 4708 W. 103rd St. around 12:10 p.m.
A pharmacist said he received a call for a prescription on March 28 from an unknown female named “June” who claimed to be calling from an Orland Park doctor’s office. The prescription—for 90 pills of a narcotic pain reliever—was prescribed to a male patient.
The clinic told police it did not have an employee named June. The doctor further confirmed that there was no record of a male patient by the name given to the pharmacist. The office had also been closed on March 28 and March 29.
Hearing a radio call of a woman attempting to fill a phone prescription, a police detective went to the pharmacy. The detective got the attention of the pharmacist and watched a woman identified as Parrilli pay for the pills at the pharmacy counter, police said.
The detective approached Parrilli and escorted her out of the store where she was arrested and taken to the Oak Lawn police station. Police said Parrilli was driven to the pharmacy by a social worker who claimed that she was unaware that Parrilli was doing anything potentially illegal.
Parrilli denied calling in the prescription or knowing who placed the phone call to the pharmacy. She further stated that she was told by her “significant other” to go pick up the pills but was unaware that anything illegal was going on, reports said.
Police said that Parilli admitted to knowing the male patient whose name was given for the narcotic, and that she had been in a relationship with him for 25 years.
She also could not tell police the name of her boyfriend’s doctor or which medication had been prescribed, police said.
Informed by the doctor that Parrilli was dropped by the clinic as a patient in July 2011 when she allegedly started calling in prescriptions for herself posing as a doctor’s clinic employee, she continued to deny that she had been doing anything illegal.
The pharmacist told police that he received a phone call from “June” earlier in the month for two narcotic, opiate-based pain relievers. Police said both prescriptions were denied after the pharmacist called the clinic and discovered that the doctor had not called them into the pharmacy. Nobody came to pick them up.
Parrilli was charged with a felony and appeared in bond court on March 30.
