SCHOOL WORKERS ARRESTED ON DRUG DISTRIBUTION CHARGES

MIAMI - Days before schools open, federal agents Thursday arrested 29
people, including school bus drivers, bus attendants and other school
employees, on charges of operating a distribution ring for the powerful
painkiller OxyContin.

Although no teachers were involved and no evidence has surfaced of drug
sales to children, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta told reporters that
the employees occupied positions of trust in schools and needed to be
removed from contact with students before Miami-Dade County schools open
Monday. "That is something that we here in Miami cannot tolerate in our
public school employees," Acosta said. "We felt it prudent and necessary to
take action with the information we already had."

Of those charged in an 84-count federal grand jury indictment unsealed
Thursday, five are school bus drivers, 13 are school bus attendants and one
is a former school bus driver now driving a city bus. Two school
custodians, a cook and a cashier were also charged, along with a Miami
doctor and five other people.

Miami-Dade schools spokesman Joseph Garcia said all of the employees would
be either placed on paid leave or given assignments that do not include
contact with students while the charges against them are resolved. They
will be fired if convicted, he said.

"These employees have hurt kids by feeding a culture of drug abuse and by
betraying a trust we've placed in them to teach right from wrong," Garcia said.

OxyContin is legal if prescribed by a physician for treatment of severe,
chronic pain. But it has become an increasing problem on the black market
because crushing the time-release tablets and snorting or injecting the
powder yields an immediate, heroin-like high. Hundreds of deaths are blamed
each year on overdoses.

According to the indictment, three of the people charged recruited the
school employees to use their United Healthcare insurance cards to obtain
thousands of OxyContin tablets using more than 100 forged or fraudulent
prescriptions.

The physician named in the case, Dr. Ronald E. Harris of Miami, was also
charged in March 2004 by state prosecutors with illegally selling OxyContin
prescriptions to Florida Medicaid recipients, costing the program more than
$694,000 in 2003 and 2004. According to the state attorney general's
office, Harris was the top prescriber of OxyContin to Medicaid recipients
in the entire state in 2004.

Once their prescriptions were filled, the Miami-Dade school employees sold
them to a middleman, who in turn sold them to a street dealer. The tablets
can bring as much as $80 each, officials said.

Mark Trouville, special agent in charge of the Miami office of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration, said the conspiracy began in January 2003
and involved more than 50 pharmacies in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Trouville said more arrests are likely.

"We felt the time was right now to take this part of the operation down,"
Trouville said.

Those charged in the indictment case face up to 20 years in prison and a $1
million fine for each count of possession of OxyContin with intent to
distribute, as well as additional prison time and fines for alleged fraud ,
prosecutors said.