FORMER STATE EMPLOYEE AND HER BOYFRIEND CONVICTED AND SENTENCED FOR ILLEGAL POSSESSION OF OXYCODONE AND COUNTERFEITING PRESCRIPTIONS

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced today that Janet Ann Boykin, a former employee at the Maryland Department of the Environment, plead guilty and was convicted for unlawful possession of the controlled dangerous substance oxycodone and counterfeiting prescriptions to obtain the painkiller. Robert Brian Sullivan, Ms. Boykin’s boyfriend and co-defendant, was also convicted for similar crimes of possession of the pain killer oxycodone and passing counterfeit prescriptions to get the drug.

The Honorable Lynn K. Stewart, the presiding Judge in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, sentenced Robert Sullivan in accordance with the State’s recommendation. For each count, Sullivan received a one- year sentence to the Division of Corrections, with credit for time served since his arrest on March 2, 2004, with the remainder of the sentence suspended. In addition, Sullivan was placed on supervised probation for three years with the special condition that he attend and complete a substance abuse treatment program as directed by Parole and Probation. Janet Ann Boykin was sentenced for each conviction to one year in the Division of Corrections, the sentences suspended. She, too, was given three years of supervised probation with the special condition that she attend and complete a substance abuse treatment program approved by Parole and Probation. She is also banned from applying for emplyment with the State while on probation.

The State read a statement of fact into the court record in support of the defendants’ guilty pleas. The facts informed the court that the crimes occurred while Janet Ann Boykin, age 50, was employed as an administrative assistant for the Maryland Department of the Environment, located at 1800 Washington Boulevard, in Baltimore City. While at work on April 25, 2003, Ms. Boykin was observed by her supervisor, a registered nurse, making what appeared to be counterfeit prescriptions from Harbor Hospital on the office photocopier. When the supervisor checked the nearby trash can, she found discarded copies of prescriptions. Meanwhile for months before this discovery, another MDE employee had been overhearing Janet Boykin during numerous suspicious phone calls. Many of the calls were evidently with her boyfriend, Robert “Brian” Sullivan. The topics of their conversations included physicians’ names, the names of pharmacies, getting prescriptions filled, and obtaining DEA numbers- a necessary component of any prescription for a narcotic controlled dangerous substance.

The investigation that followed was conducted by the Office of the Attorney General’s Criminal Investigations Division and the Maryland State Police. The investigation determined that both defendants were actually getting prescriptions for Percocet, a brand name of oxycodone, from a number of area physicians. Other prescriptions used by the defendants to obtain Percocet (oxycodone) were counterfeits.

Janet Boykin passed six counterfeit prescriptions in her name in order to get oxycodone at the Pratt Street Pharmacy in Baltimore City, between April 21, 2003 and June 13, 2003. The counterfeit prescriptions were the same as the ones discarded by her in the MDE trash can on April 25, 2003. Robert Brian Sullivan, age 46, passed four counterfeit prescriptions in his name at two different city pharmacies between March 16, 2003 and June 7, 2003. Three of the counterfeits were made to appear to be from Harbor Hospital, like the prescriptions counterfeited by Boykin. The fourth was counterfeited on a stolen prescription pad belonging to Family Medicine Associates in Baltimore City.

The defendants were arrested on March 2, 2004, at their residence at 1004 Hignet Way, Baltimore, Maryland 21205. Ms. Boykin had already been discharged from her state job.

The case was prosecuted by the Criminal Investigations Division of the Maryland Office of the Attorney General and the Maryland State Police.

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