Former rescue worker accepts plea agreement in prescription fraud case

By Kaitlin Mayhew -- kmayhew@nvdaily.com

HARRISONBURG -- A former employee of the Shenandoah County Fire and Rescue Department charged with two counts of prescription fraud has entered a plea agreement that will reduce her charge to one misdemeanor if she remains on good behavior.

Carrie Lynn Booth, 27, of 936 Airport Road, Bridgewater, pleaded guilty in Rockingham County Circuit Court on Friday to one count of fraud. The conditions of her plea agreement require that she stay on supervised probation for two years.

Within that time period she must enter a screening, evaluation and education program as well as submit to random drug tests.

If all goes well, at the end of those two years her felony charge will be reduced to a class 1 misdemeanor. Her second fraud charge was dismissed by Judge James V. Lane.

This was Booth's first criminal offense, according to court documents.

Booth was employed by the Shenandoah County Fire and Rescue Department as a firefighter-emergency medical technician for four years.

She was arrested by Harrisonburg police Nov. 6 after a pharmacist contacted police saying that two prescriptions Booth had tried to fill had been altered.

The two prescriptions were for Percocet and Valium, and the amounts of both drugs on the prescription had been changed.

Booth's final adjudication has been scheduled by Lane for Feb. 7, 2014, at 9 a.m.