A former Bergen County auxiliary police officer turned informant has been arrested on drug charges.
According to police, the woman who helped indict a ring of corrupt police officers during the 1990s was recently arrested for prescription drug fraud, after she allegedly claimed the prescriptions were for her dead father.
She was arrested in a 2001 incident during which she reportedly posed as a doctor. In that case, police said she was attempting to obtain medications for pain and anxiety.
Her most recent arrest was on suspicions that she attempted to fill prescriptions for the high-octane painkillers Oxycodone and Fentanyl.
She also was reportedly seeking to obtain Alprazolam, which is the generic form of Xanax.
Officers said they're not sure how many illegal prescriptions the woman possessed.
The charges against her include obtaining a controlled dangerous substance by fraud.
The former Palisades Park police officer had been removed from her position in 1997 after new leadership took over the police department.
According to a media source, the former auxiliary officer sank into depression as her 19-year career came to a close, questioning whether she should have revealed the misconduct of former coworkers.
She became an informant after discovering that other officers were involved in a string of burglaries involving Asian families who stored large amounts of money in their homes. She surreptitiously interviewed the officers themselves, as well as family and friends, in order to bring about the convictions.
No information on the former officer's plea to new charges was available in the media report, and a trial date has not been scheduled.
Source: Cliffview Pilot: "Auxiliary cop turned informant arrested again for prescription fraud," Jerry DeMarco, Feb. 5, 2012