COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – A local doctor along with a Coldwater woman were formally charged with eight felony drug counts Friday in Branch County District Court.
Arraignments were held for 42-year-old Doctor Christina Whitaker and co-defendant 41-year-old Gretchen Alldredge.
They were arrested following a Coldwater Police Department investigation into the alleged illegal drug activity.
Included among the charges Whitaker and Alldredge are facing are four counts of trying to obtain prescription drugs by fraud.
Whitaker was being held in the Branch County without bond on Saturday while bond for Alldredge was $100,000.
It’s not the first time Whitaker has been in trouble with the law.
Back in August 2008, Whitaker entered guilty pleas to two counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. Michigan State Police said at the time that Whitaker wrote false prescriptions for Adderall on more than a dozen occasions.
Adderall is an attention deficit disorder drug which also can have stimulant effects.
Authorities said nearly a decade ago that Whitaker forged another doctor’s signature and obtained the drugs at several pharmacies in the Coldwater area beginning in January 2006.
A nurse in the office of the physician whose signature was being forged reported her suspicions to state officials and that led to Whitaker’s arrest.
