Missouri drug ring including dental employee Anne Marie Coke busted by police - released on $50k bond

Anne Marie Coke, 36, of Marshall, Missouri (MO), faced 134 Class D felony charges after investigators determined she had been forging prescriptions for controlled substances using a pad she stole from her uncle — a local dentist. Each of the charges related to fraudulently attempting to obtain a controlled substance. The probable cause statement covered transactions from March 2014 through February 2016.

Investigators identified thirteen individuals who had filled prescriptions written under the scheme, each obtaining 20 to 30 oxycodone tablets per transaction. Coke had obtained the prescription pad through her familial access to her uncle’s practice — a relationship that also provided the cover that delayed detection. A warrant was issued for her arrest and bond was set at $50,000 cash or surety.

This case appears in Prosperident’s Hall of Shame not because it involves direct financial theft from a dental practice’s accounts, but because the dental office was the source of the resource that made the crime possible. Prescription pads, pharmaceutical samples, controlled substance logs, and access credentials are all assets a dental practice holds — and all are things that employees, and individuals with informal access through family relationships, can exploit. The discipline that protects against financial embezzlement and the discipline that protects against prescription fraud draw from the same principle: restrict access, verify inventory, and do not treat personal relationships as a substitute for oversight.

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More than 30 felony charges filed against Marshall couple