The San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Department announced it arrested Michelle Blain-Dresser, who was the Pharmacist-in-Charge for Lake Arrowhead Village Pharmacy, aka villagemeds.com.

VillageMeds.com was the first rogue Internet pharmacy covered in our report about rogue Internet pharmacies participating in Yahoo’s online advertising program.

The report states:

A source close to the investigation explained that, during the search, over 55,000 pills were uncovered and seized from the location by Detective Eversole and Drug Enforcement Administration Pharmaceutical Division Investigator, Connie Carey.

The pills, identified in Sheriff’s Department records as generic Soma, were found in four large trash bags containing pill bottles prescribed to several different people around the United States. Soma is described as a muscle relaxant and medical authorities caution Soma should never be given to another person, especially someone who has a history of drug abuse or addiction.

“Every single one of the bottles found in the bags,” Detective Eversole explained, "had the label of Lake Arrowhead Village Pharmacy. The names on the bottles were for people residing in various states all over the United States.

“In addition, we located medical records for persons who did not live in the residence,” Eversole added.

The media release from the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Station reported records found at the home revealed the pharmacy engaged in unlawful filling of controlled substance prescriptions via the Internet.

Lake Arrowhead Village Pharmacy operated one seemingly “legitimate” website, lakearrowheadvillagepharmacy.com. However, that was not the website through which illicit activity was conducted. Rather, as LegitScript and KnujOn noted in our August report on Yahoo! rogue Internet pharmacy advertisements, drugs like Soma, tramadol and fioricet were sold without a valid prescription via villagemeds.com, which relied upon its ability to advertise via Google and Yahoo to target Internet users.

Our report challenged PharmacyChecker to disclose whether they had ever approved villagemeds.com or any of its predecessors, such as medsrx1.com, for advertising on Google or Yahoo. PharmacyChecker has not provided any response, and has not disclosed whether it approved villagemeds.com or its predecessor websites.

VillageMeds.com provided contact information for Lake Arrowhead Village Pharmacy as the dispensing pharmacy. Prior to our report, we called the pharmacy to confirm that Lake Arrowhead Village Pharmacy was, indeed, the pharmacy filling prescriptions for villagemeds.com. We received an affirmative response.

NOTE: Ms. Blain-Dresser is innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.