NASSAU- Tietchka Vanderpool-Wallace, the wife of former Tourism Minister Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, was sent to prison for a week to await sentencing for prescription fraud.
Vanderpool-Wallace, 54, the daughter of former Minister of Agriculture Ervin Knowles, forged her doctor’s signature on a stolen prescription pad in bid to obtain drugs that he had taken her off.
Vanderpool-Wallace, of Bayview Drive, Paradise Island, gave the forged prescriptions to Livingston Seymour to fill on February 29.
Police arrested Seymour when a pharmacist at Centreville Pharmacy called them.
They arrested Vanderpool-Wallace when she went to the Wulff Road Police Station to check on Seymour.
Police found the stolen blank prescription pad in her car.
During a police interview, Vanderpool-Wallace admitted to stealing the prescription pad from the Princess Margaret Hospital.
She admitted charges of possession of a forged document, forgery and attempted fraud by false pretences at her arraignment before Senior Magistrate Carolyn Vogt-Evans on March 2.
Vanderpool-Wallace suffers from clinical depression and opioid addiction, her lawyer Tonique Lewis told the court. And, she once held legitimate prescriptions for the medication she tried to get.
Lewis said, “This is a matter where, unfortunately, mental health issues arise. Mrs Vanderpool-Wallace was not filling prescriptions for sale to others, or on behalf of someone else.”
Vogt-Evans said, “What you did was a criminal act.”
Vogt-Evans adjourned sentencing to March 9 to give Lewis time to get Vanderpool-Wallace’s medical records.
Seymour, on the other hand, denied the prescription fraud charges and is set to be tried on May 7.
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