A man and a woman from Oceanside were arrested Thursday on charges of faking a prescription for narcotic painkillers from a CVS pharmacy in Great Neck.
John Gleeson, 39, and Melissa Bizella, 32, allegedly called the CVS as 1 Gussack Plaza and tried to obtain a prescription for Oxycodone while pretending to be representatives from a medical office, according to a police report.
Officers with the Nassau County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Rapid Response Team were waiting for the pair and arrested them when they tried to pick up the prescription.
Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice has identified drug abuse, and prescription drug abuse in particular, as one of the top challenges facing law enforcement in the United States.
“Not only is [drug abuse] our nation’s No. 1 health crisis, but it’s a public safety crisis as well,” Rice said in a July interview with Blank Slate Media.
Gleeson and Bizella were charged with falsifying a business record in the first degree and were arraigned Thursday at 1st District Court in Hempstead.
