FORMER STATE EMPLOYEE, HUSBAND FACE DRUG CHARGES

HARLAN, Ky. -- A former state employee and her husband face drug charges
after shipments of OxyContin were intercepted by investigators, authorities
said.

Diana Pittman, 43, and Donald Pittman, 34, both of Evarts, were charged
with possessing OxyContin with intent to distribute, conspiring to possess
OxyContin and felony use of a communication facility. Diana Pittman had
been a case manager for the Kentucky Cabinet for Families and Children
office in Harlan, where shipments of the painkiller were addressed.

The Pittmans were named in federal indictments returned last week. They
were arrested Tuesday by federal agents and local police, The Harlan Daily
Enterprise reported.

Harlan County sheriff's Detective Roger Hall alleged that Donald Pittman
shipped the drugs by Federal Express last year from Laredo, Texas, to his
wife in the state office.

Hall said the first package was intercepted Aug. 29 and the second Sept. 6
at Diana Pittman's workplace before it reached her desk.

Diana Pittman was fired Dec. 7 because of the drug-transaction allegations,
said Michael Jennings, spokesman for the Cabinet for Families and Children.

Diana Pittman was named in an earlier state indictment, charging her with
two counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud.

That indictment alleges she obtained a prescription for a controlled
substance by not telling one physician that she had already received the
same or similar drugs from another.

If taken properly, OxyContin's active ingredient is released slowly into
the body. But abusers get around the time-release by crushing the pills and
inhaling or injecting the powder to get the same kind of euphoric high that
heroin brings.