HOUSE ARREST FOR DRUG ABUSER

1-Year Sentence For Comber Woman

A Comber woman addicted to painkillers was sentenced Thursday to a
year of house arrest followed by three years on probation for
fraudulently obtaining prescriptions for more than 3,000 pills from 15
doctors.

Penny Quinlan, 32, admitted that between June 2002 and May 2003, she
visited doctors in Windsor, London and Essex County to get
prescriptions for oxycodone -- sold under the brand name Percocet.

She filled the prescriptions at eight different pharmacies. Since
Quinlan was on social assistance at the time, the cost of her
prescriptions, except for a $2 dispensing fee, was paid by the
provincial government under the Ontario Drug Benefit.

She pleaded guilty in May to 217 counts of double doctoring and of
defrauding the Ministry of Health of $8,720.68.

Quinlan began to cry as federal prosecutor Nicole Lamphier asked
Ontario Court Justice Guy DeMarco to sentence the woman to three to
four years in a federal penitentiary.

"This is not something that happened once," said Lamphier. "This was
well thought out. It was planned."

She said that because of Quinlan's fraudulent behaviour, doctors "may
be skeptical" of their patients and people in pain may suffer.

Lamphier said Quinlan's sentence should be stiff enough to deter
others from committing the same crime.

But Quinlan's lawyer, Bob DiPietro, asked the judge for a nine-month
conditional sentence.

"I don't think a penitentiary term is warranted in this case," he
said. Quinlan has no prior criminal record and had "a troubled past"
including being the victim of a serious assault and becoming a mother
at a young age.

She became addicted to the drugs after taking them to control pain
following seven surgeries. "She felt the prescriptions she was getting
from her own doctor were not ample enough to deal with her pain."

In sentencing Quinlan, the judge noted she began taking the drugs for
authentic reasons. DeMarco told her a mitigating factor was "the fact
that you were addicted to these painkillers."

During her term of house arrest, Quinlan will be allowed to leave her
residence only for school, work, medical appointments, religious
services and legal appointments.

During both her house arrest and probation, she is to undergo
substance abuse and rehabilitative treatments recommended by her
supervisor and abstain from illicit drugs, DeMarco said. "Take only
such medication that is prescribed to you in the dosage and at the
times prescribed." She is to provide a list of her prescription
medications to her supervisor.

Quinlan, dressed in a faded, short black dress, fled the courtroom
after the sentence. She told the Windsor Star her lawyer had prepared
her for the sentence.

"I was expecting it," she said, but added it was "hard" to hear the
prosecutor ask for jail time.