A Magnet Cove woman was arrested Monday at a local grocery store pharmacy for allegedly trying to obtain narcotics using a forged prescription.
Jessica Lynn Sparks, 29, was taken into custody shortly before 5 p.m. at Kroger, 3341 Central Ave., and charged with obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, a felony punishable by up to six years in prison.
Sparks was later released on $2,500 bond and is set to appear Oct. 28 in Garland County District Court.
According to the affidavit, shortly after 4:30 p.m., Hot Springs police Detectives Allen and Seymour responded to the store regarding a possible fraud and spoke to the pharmacist, who described the suspect as a white female with red hair wearing a pink top who had dropped off a prescription for hydrocodone.
The pharmacist told her to come back later for the prescription and checked with the doctor in Malvern who had supposedly written the prescription and learned it was fraudulent, and written on a prescription pad that had been stolen from the doctor's office.
A few minutes later, the suspect, later identified as Sparks, came back into the store and approached the pharmacy counter where an employee handed her the bottle of hydrocodone pills.
She was starting to leave the store when she was confronted by the detectives and before they could ask her any questions, she allegedly pulled the bottle from her purse and said, "I know that this is what you are here for."
She was questioned later and gave a formal statement to police admitting she knew the prescription was fraudulent, but she "needed the money" she was going to receive for retrieving and delivering the pills.
Local on 10/15/2014