A Walworth woman is accused of stealing prescription credentials from a medical office and fraudulently obtaining painkillers on multiple occasions from a Burlington pharmacy.
Amy N. Funderburk, 37, was charged last week in Racine County Circuit Court with four counts of misappropriation of identification information for financial gain, two counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and two counts of bail jumping. All of the charges are felonies.
Funderburk appeared in court by video Sept. 24 where she was bound over for trial and her bond was set at $2,000 cash. She was also ordered not to consume controlled substances while the case is pending and to submit to random drug tests.
A preliminary hearing in the case is set for Oct. 3.
According to the criminal complaint, Burlington police began investigating a complaint of prescription fraud from Walgreens, 680 Milwaukee Ave., on Sept. 18. An officer interviewed a pharmacy employee who said a person claiming to be an assistant for a local doctor had twice called in prescriptions for antibiotics and the painkiller Tramadol.
Both times a woman who showed a driver’s license bearing Funderburk’s name picked up the prescriptions at the pharmacy although they were intended from someone else who presumably lived with Funderburk, according to the complaint.
The scheme began to unravel when a pharmacist at Walgreens noticed that one of the people for whom the drugs were prescribed had an allergy to antibiotics. The pharmacy contacted the doctor’s office and was told that neither of the patients for whom the drugs were prescribed had been seen recently by the doctor, the complaint alleges.
Subsequent investigation, however, revealed the doctor had seen Funderburk on Sept. 3 at which time she received a written prescription for Tramadol that included the doctor’s federal prescribing number used in the alleged fraudulent prescriptions, the complaint contends.
The complaint further alleges that the visit would have given Funderburk the opportunity to obtain the name of the doctor’s assistant that was used to call-in the fraudulent prescriptions.
On Sept. 23 police received a call from Walgreens stating another suspected fraudulent prescription had been called in for the same two drugs, according to the complaint. Police were waiting when Funderburk arrived and questioned her regarding the prescriptions.
She initially told police that she was being paid to simply pick up the prescriptions for someone else who was calling in the fraudulent orders, according to the complaint.
However, when pressed by police she allegedly admitted to calling in the fraudulent prescriptions on four occasions and receiving pills. She also told police she attempted to do the same at other pharmacies in the area, according to the complaint.
When asked by the officer why she was doing it, she allegedly stated she “is trying to get better, but has not yet.”
According to court records quoted in the criminal complaint, Funderburk has been convicted of forgery and burglary in an attempt to obtain dangerous drugs in Georgia. She also has charges of obtaining and attempt to obtain controlled substances by fraud pending in Kenosha County.
