Prescription fraud investigation ends with Palm Beach woman in St. Lucie County Jail

UPDATE: Lisa Murphy in 2018 pleaded no contest to nine counts of obtaining or attempting to obtain a controlled substance by fraud and adjudication was withheld, according to the St. County County Clerk’s Office.

Updated story: Woman sentenced to probation in prescription drug case

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Lisa Murphy, now 40, in 2018 pleaded no contest to nine counts of obtaining or attempting to obtain a controlled substance by fraud following her arrest in December 2017.

PORT ST. LUCIE — A beachfront resident from Palm Beach County is in jail on charges of repeatedly presenting false drug prescriptions at a local grocery store, according to court records.

Most of the prescriptions were for attention deficit disorders.

Lisa Murphy, 36, of Riviera Beach, was arrested Tuesday on nine charges of obtaining or attempting to obtain controlled substances by fraud at a Winn-Dixie pharmacy in the 200 block of Port St. Lucie Boulevard.

She is being held in the St. Lucie County Jail with bail set at $145,000.

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According to court records, she traveled monthly from Riviera Beach to Port St. Lucie, a distance of about 50 miles.

The arrest affidavit doesn't say what she was doing with the drugs. The prescriptions were for a total of about 900 pills.

St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Investigators started looking into the case in September when a Winn-Dixie pharmacist "noticed the handwriting on a prescription ... for Lisa Murphy didn't seem similar to that of the doctors," according to arrest records.

The pharmacist contacted the doctor, a psychiatrist in West Palm Beach, who said he "did not write the prescription," according to the records.

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Winn-Dixie officials said Murphy was a frequent customer and investigators began looking into past prescriptions presented by her. They found 23 suspect prescriptions dating back to October 2016.

Most of the prescriptions were for Adderall or Dextroamp-Amphet.

She was arrested on court-issued warrants after turning herself in Tuesday afternoon.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Palm Beach County woman arrested on prescription fraud charges in St. Lucie County