Four arrested in Modesto prescription drug ring plead guilty

Four Stanislaus County residents indicted on federal charges related to a prescription drug ring involving a Modesto pain management clinic and a CVS pharmacy have all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and hydrocodone. One has been sentenced, two are scheduled to be sentenced later this month and the fourth is to be sentenced this summer.

Prompted by an anonymous tip, the Modesto Police Department’s Narcotics Enforcement Team discovered that hundreds of blank prescriptions had been stolen from Central Valley Pain Management on Mable Avenue and fraudulently filled at a CVS Pharmacy from December 2013 to January 2015, when the four defendants were indicted by a federal grand jury.

Arrested were Christina Martinez, Lance Wilson and Mona Chavarin, all of Modesto, and Lenele Nunez of Hughson.

According to court documents, Nunez would use her authority as officer manager of Central Valley Pain Management in north Modesto to steal blank prescription pads and sell them to Martinez.

Martinez would enter false information on the prescriptions, sometimes filling them out in the names of people she knew, other times making up names.

Martinez, accompanied by Wilson, would take the prescriptions to the CVS Pharmacy in McHenry Village, where her aunt, Chavarin, worked as a pharmacy technician. Chavarin would fill the prescriptions of oxycodone and hydrocodone and Martinez, with the help of Wilson, would sell them on the street, according to court documents.

More than 25,000 oxycodone pills and 30,000 hydrocodone pills were involved in the offense, according to the plea agreement.

Chavarin was the first to enter her guilty plea in June and was sentenced to 48 months in prison, which she began serving in October. She was also ordered to serve 36 months of supervised release following her prison sentence and pay a $100 fine.

The other defendants are awaiting sentencing.

Martinez entered her plea in September, and Wilson in November. They are both scheduled to be sentenced May 15.

Wilson’s attorney is asking he be given a more lenient sentence of 48 months of probation because his only communication was with Martinez, not the other two defendants; he did not know the scope of the conspiracy; he did not profit from the conspiracy and he “was motivated to commit the offense by his relationship with co-defendant Martinez,” according to a court document.

Nunez entered her plea in September but her sentencing was postponed for a year due to medical reasons.

This story was originally published May 4, 2017 at 1:31 PM with the headline "Four arrested in Modesto prescription drug ring plead guilty."