Warren County Jury Finds Former Deputy Not Guilty in Alleged Drug Trafficking Scheme

January 20, 2011

by: 

Dwayne Page

A former DeKalb County Sheriff's deputy, charged in connection with a drug trafficking scheme at a McMinnville clinic in 2009, has been found innocent of the charge against him following a two day jury trial in Warren County Criminal Court this week.

The jury, Thursday afternoon, found Larry Pedigo, Jr. not guilty of fraudulently obtaining drugs (oxycontin) from the Ameri-Care Urgent Care Clinic in McMinnville. He was originally indicted on two counts of delivery of a schedule II narcotic (oxycontin) and two counts of fraudulently obtaining drugs (oxycontin)

Prosecutors alleged that Pedigo had participated in a scheme to obtain oxycontin from Justin Turner, a physician's assistant at the clinic, only to return some of the drugs to Turner, who was believed to have been addicted to the medications and needed them to feed his habit.

Three other officers, who worked for either the McMinnville Police Department or Warren County Sheriff's Department, were also charged in the case along with Turner, clinic employee Marcus Northcutt, among others. Some of the defendants in the case have already been sentenced while others still await trial.

Pedigo, who steadfastly maintained his innocence since being arrested, refused to settle the case, preferring to stand trial. By the time his case went to trial, two of the charges against Pedigo had already been dropped by state prosecutors and another charge was dismissed during the trial at the close of the state's proof after Special Judge Tim Easter granted a motion by Pedigo's attorney, Hilton Conger for a directed verdict. That, said Conger, left only one charge for the jury to consider against Pedigo, one count of obtaining prescription medication by fraud. "The state (previously) dismissed two of the counts against Pedigo because he had an air tight alibi for where he was on the date that they alleged these (crimes) occurred. The judge dismissed the other one, the charge of delivery, upon my motion for a directed verdict at the close of the state's proof. The state had not proven that Junior Pedigo had ever delivered any drugs to Justin Turner, the physician's assistant who worked at Ameri-Care. The charge that went to the jury was one count of obtaining prescription medication (Oxycontin) by fraud, which is a class C felony."

Conger told WJLE Thursday afternoon that Pedigo always maintained that the prescription he was given was for a medical necessity. "He had injured his knee on May, 20th 2009 while working as a detective in DeKalb County. He was making an arrest and tore a cartilage in his knee. It ultimately resulted in surgery to that knee. He was going to this physician's assistant at Ameri-Care for his work comp injury. It was always his insistence that the prescription for oxycontin was written to him for a legitimate medical purpose."

According to Conger the charges against Pedigo and the others was the result of an undercover investigation which began in March, 2009. "An employee of Ameri-Care had contacted the district attorney and reported that Justin Turner was writing prescriptions to patients he was not seeing and for people who did not need them (drugs). There was also an employee, Marcus Northcutt, who was posing as a nurse and dispensing prescriptions. That led to an investigation. During the investigation the names of four police officers surfaced alleging that they were involved in obtaining drugs. The scheme was that the physician's assistant, who was allegedly addicted to oxycontin, was writing prescriptions to various people, including some police officers in exchange for a return of oxycontin to him. Junior Pedigo just happened to be a patient there for his workers comp case. He was not involved in this scheme but because he was a patient there and because he had been given a prescription for oxycontin, he was implicated. Pedigo always maintained his innocence and that the only time he got oxycontin was for a legitimate medical purpose."

Pedigo resigned from the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department after the case came to light in August, 2009.

In a brief statement to WJLE Thursday night, Pedigo said "I'd like to say a special thanks to all my friends and family and my attorney who stood by me through this ordeal."

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OCCI to Begin Mobilizing Equipment for Construction at Hurricane Bridge

January 20, 2011

by: 

Dwayne Page

The contractor on the Hurricane Bridge rehabilitation project may start moving in equipment as early as next week in preparation for the beginning of construction.

Officials of OCCI Incorporated of Fulton, Missouri were among those present at a pre-construction conference held Thursday morning at the TDOT building on Armory Street in Smithville where details of the project were discussed. Representatives from TDOT's regional and field offices also took part in the discussions along with consulting engineers.

Milton Greer, resident engineer for Modjeski and Masters, a consultant for TDOT on the Hurricane Bridge project told WJLE that OCCI is expected to begin preparation work within a few days. " The contractor is planning on doing some mobilization starting this next week and possibly get some traffic control items set up. Hopefully around the first of February, they'll start doing some of their preparation work, putting up some shielding, etc to protect the river so that they can start doing some repair work underneath the bridge, such sandblasting and repainting the sub-structure."

Among the issues discussed during the pre-construction conference Thursday morning was the traffic control plan for the bridge during construction. Greer said posted weight limits on the bridge will continue to be enforced, however school buses and fire trucks will be allowed to cross. Otherwise, loaded trucks over the posted weight limits will have to detour via State Highway 96 (Dale Ridge Road). "Local traffic including light trucks and multi-axle trucks 18 tons or less can continue to use the bridge as well as 10 ton trucks with two axles. Any vehicle in excess of that will need to take a detour which will be around highway 96. There will be traffic signals when we have alternating traffic on the bridge (one lane open) to control the direction of traffic. A fair amount of the time there will be two way traffic maintained on the bridge but there will be short periods where we will have to have alternating traffic on the bridge. As far as traffic control on the bridge, that probably will not go into effect until the actual construction starts. At some point in time when they start getting ready to take the deck off, we'll have to start doing alternating traffic in order to set up the required portable barrier rails for the protection of the public and the workers on the bridge."

The county ceased flagging operations January 1st but officials said flaggers may be needed again at some point during construction.

Greer also described the scope of the work to be done on the bridge "We've got a certain amount of strengthening to do to the steel truss members and some additional stringers which actually support the concrete deck. The existing rails and deck will eventually be removed from the bridge and replaced with a lite weight concrete deck." The bridge will also be repainted .

In October, TDOT awarded the bid to OCCI Incorporated at $26.9 million.
The contractor has until October 31st, 2013 to complete the project. OCCI officials said Thursday that they plan to finish the project in less tme.

County Mayor Mike Foster, who was present during the pre-construction conference, said he was pleased to hear that construction work will be starting soon. "I'm glad to know that they're not going to interrupt traffic, except for loaded trucks. But the fact that traffic can still go across the bridge including school buses, fire trucks, and empty trucks is a big, big relief. I was also encouraged to hear the contractor say that he thought he could cut a year off the contract time. That's big for us. This is important to all of our industries and all the people who work there, as well as tourism. That's our life blood."

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