A federal judge Thursday ordered the release on a $25,000 signature bond of four Hilo women accused of illegally obtaining and then selling powerful painkillers and other prescription drugs.
The Hilo doctor who wrote the prescriptions for the drugs was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court this afternoon to see whether he also will get released pending further prosecution by the government.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Melinda Yamaga told U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard L. Puglisi on Thursday that Dr. Ernest Bade was sick and in the hospital.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says in a complaint filed in court Monday that Bade, 80, who operates Bade Medical Clinic in Hilo, handed out prescriptions for large quantities of drugs without examining his patients and handed out prescription refills without even seeing them. The complaint says the four women — Marie Benevides, 80, Yvonne Caitano, 54, Theresa Saltus, 59, and Sheena Strong, 32 — are employees of the clinic as well as patients of Bade.
Benevides is the mother of Caitano, who is Strong’s mother.
All five defendants were arrested Tuesday during a raid of the Hilo clinic. The U.S. Marshals Service transported them to Honolulu on Wednesday.
“The seriousness of the charges speak volumes about the opioid epidemic in America,” said lawyer Moani Crowell, who, along with Myles Breiner, represents Caitano.
The DEA says the prescription painkillers include oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl and morphine. All four are either opium-based or opium-derived. The other prescription drugs include steroids, muscle relaxers and sedatives.
According to the complaint, Caitano and Benevides had a 14-year-old girl deliver drugs to people in their cars outside Caitano’s home and collect money from them. The DEA says Saltus, Caitano, Strong and Benevides traveled to Maui to fill their prescriptions, signed by Bade, after pharmacies in Hilo, suspicious of the prescriptions, stopped filling them.
The DEA says it started an undercover investigation of Bade in 2015 but suspended it that same year “due to the investigative needs of other cases.” The agency says it resumed its investigation this year.
