Duncan Pair Plead Guilty To Federal Drug Charges

The United States Attorney's Office confirmed Tuesday that two people from Duncan pleaded guilty to federal drug charges.

Steven Michael Rhodes, 33, and Heather DeYoung, 28, pleaded guilty in federal court in Anderson to conspiracy to distribute oxytocin.

Senior United States District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr. accepted the plea and will impose sentence after he has reviewed the presentence report which will be prepared by the U.S. Probation Office.       

Evidence presented at the change of plea hearing established that Rhodes  worked with Joshua Balkind, who has already been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for his role in the conspiracy,  in making fraudulent prescriptions for the drug roxicodone. 

Balkind and Rhodes used various individuals to go into pharmacies in the upstate of South Carolina and in North Carolina to pass the counterfeit prescriptions.

Rhodes and Balkind would pay the prescription passer with a small quantity of pills for passing the prescription. Rhodes and Balkind would then sell and use the remaining pills received from the runner. Heather DeYoung worked for the conspiracy as a passer of the fraudulent prescriptions. 

In May 2011 in Union, DeYoung attempted to pass a counterfeit prescription, but the pharmacist recognized that the prescription was not real, as the physician who supposedly wrote the prescription had been dead for years.  

The pharmacist called the Union County Sheriff’s Office and arrested DeYoung at the pharmacy.       

The maximum penalty Rhodes and DeYoung can receive is a fine of $1,000,000 and/or imprisonment for 20 years, plus a special assessment of $100.       

The case was investigated by agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.