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Nicole Gonzales reportingA woman convicted of defrauding her insurance company by filling dozens of prescriptions will not serve jail time.
Shelley Hendricks will serve 100 hours of community service, spend 36 months on probation and will have to pay restitution totaling $105,000 for emergency room visits and exams.
Hendricks, 30, repeatedly visited hospitals and urgent-care clinics in the Salt Lake valley shopping for pain medication. Darrel Bell, with the Utah Attorney General's Office, says she made as many as 90 visits in one year.
Bell says that Hendricks' actions warrant a punishment, but he's not sure a harsh punishment is the answer. "I don't know that jail would serve the purposes that the state needs. The state needs her to get the treatment that she needs," he said.
Court documents show that in a 10-week period in 2006, Hendricks received medication from six different doctors and two pharmacies, including two morphine prescriptions on the same day.
Hendricks still maintains many of the prescriptions she filled were for legitimate health concerns.
E-mail: ngonzales@ksl.com
