October 2, 2009
Gary Davidson
Public Information Officer

SUSPECT IN ILLEGAL PILL OPERATION HELD ON $1 MILLION BOND

A DeBary man is being held on $1 million bond after Volusia County Sheriff’s investigators charged him with running an expansive criminal enterprise that sold pharmaceutical drugs acquired with phony prescriptions. 

While the investigation is far from over, officials believe 41-year-old John Davey had more than 30 people on his payroll. Davey is accused of forging prescriptions, mostly for Oxycodone, Dilaudid and Xanax, and then paying people to get the phony prescriptions filled at local pharmacies. In just two-and-a-half months, he obtained prescriptions for more than 14,000 pills, with an estimated street value of approximately $200,000. Davey would pay his accomplices in either money or pills.

Investigators in the Sheriff’s Office’s DeBary headquarters launched the investigation last month, after receiving an anonymous tip about Davey’s operation. On Sept. 25, Sergeant Virgil Ford and investigator Greg Seymour were in DeBary on an unrelated case, driving an unmarked car, when they spotted a pickup truck with Davey and two other occupants. Acting on a hunch that they were on their way to get drugs, the investigators decided to follow the truck. While watching from a distance, one of the occupants went into a local pharmacy and picked up a prescription for 120 Oxycodone pills. After the truck left the pharmacy, a deputy in a marked patrol car stopped the vehicle. Deputies located the bottle of Oxycodone pills on Davey and he was arrested on charges of trafficking in illegal drugs and obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. He posted $30,000 bond and was later released on the charges.

After investigators linked Davey to numerous other fraudulent pill purchases, they obtained an arrest warrant on Friday from Circuit Court Judge Hubert L. Grimes charging Davey with operating a continuing criminal enterprise. Florida statutes define the offense as the commission of three or more felonies by someone acting in the capacity of an organizer or supervisor and in concert with five or more people. Davey was picked up Friday afternoon at his home on Valencia Road and is being transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach, where he will be held on $1 million bond.