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Jury prescribes charges for pharmacist
The Boardman man is charged with reckless retail drug sales between October 2005 and June 2006.
YOUNGSTOWN — A longtime local pharmacist has been indicted on 24 counts of sale of dangerous drugs in an alleged long-distance Internet scheme, in which he is accused of illegally filling more than 10,000 prescriptions totaling more than 1 million doses.
The Mahoning County grand jury indicted Gary A. Evankovich, of Devonshire Drive, Boardman, on Thursday after a lengthy investigation by the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy.
Evankovich is charged with the reckless retail sale of drugs in a broad range of categories between October 2005 and June 2006, and each count is a fourth-degree felony, potentially carrying six to 18 months in prison upon conviction.
Ohio State Board of Pharmacy records show Evankovich was first licensed as a pharmacist in August 1978 and holds an active license expiring Sept. 15, 2009, with no formal action having been taken concerning his license.
State pharmacy board records list him as the responsible party for the active retail pharmacy license for North Lima Pharmacy on South Avenue Extension. Evankovich is an owner there and at Bel-Park Pharmacy, on Parmelee Avenue, which also has an active retail license.
Evankovich was an owner of the former Mill Creek Square Pharmacy on South Schenley Avenue and of the former Oak Hill Pharmacy in the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
The illegal drug orders are alleged to have originated via the Internet in the Caribbean, and the prescriptions were written by a New York physician and sent to Evankovich via the Internet, said Robert E. Bush Jr., chief of the criminal division of the Mahoning County prosecutor’s office.
Saying he hadn’t seen the indictment, Evankovich declined to comment Friday afternoon when he was reached at North Lima Pharmacy.
Among the drugs Evankovich is charged with dispensing illegally in large quantities are Fioricet, a strong narcotic pain reliever and relaxant; Tramadol, a narcoticlike pain reliever; and Soma, a muscle relaxer.
The grand jury also indicted several Mahoning County jail inmates for offenses they are alleged to have committed in the jail.
Butler Johnson, 36, of Melvina Street, is charged with assault, a fourth-degree felony. He’s accused of injuring a county sheriff’s deputy by pulling the deputy’s hand through his cell’s food tray trap door on Nov. 23.
Artis Dennis, 43, of West Hylda Avenue, is charged with harassment with a bodily substance, accused of spitting in a deputy’s face Nov. 28. That charge is a fifth-degree felony, potentially carrying six to 12 months in prison.
Devron L. Lucas-James, 22, of Tyrone Street, is charged with harassment with a bodily substance, a fifth degree felony, and aggravated menacing, a first-degree misdemeanor. The penalty for a first-degree misdemeanor can be up to six months in jail.
The charges say that on Dec. 21, he threw a cup of urine and feces under a door toward a deputy and threatened to shoot a deputy after he is freed from jail.
Laronnie Franklin, 24, of East Judson Avenue, is charged with disrupting public services and vandalism, felonies of the fourth and fifth degrees, respectively, in the breaking of a jail sprinkler head Dec. 21.
“The inmates will face the consequences of new charges for these actions,” said Maj. James Lewandowski of the county sheriff’s department.
Lewandowski said he hopes these new charges will also result in harsher sentences for those convicted of the charges that originally brought them to the jail.
milliken@vindy.com