A few morning showers will disappear for the most part by afternoon hours and temps today are forecast to be a bit cooler, weather details are coming up
Two-and-a-half years after the clinic he helped manage was raided by authorities, a former Paintsville doctor has pleaded guilty to federal drug charges. Don Bryson served as medical consultant for Appalachian Family Medicine, despite having previously surrendered his medical license following an investigation into his prescribing of controlled substances. Appalachian Family Medicine typically saw large numbers of patients who paid $75 in cash to get prescriptions for opioid painkillers. Because Bryson did not have a license, the clinic would use doctors from a temp agency, usually on a short-term basis. But Bryson and the owner of the clinic would maintain control of the practice, restricting the use of urine tests or pill counts and discouraging the doctors from reducing the patient dosages. After one doctor left in September of 2021, a new doctor was brought in, but the new doctor did not have a DEA registration number that would allow him to write prescriptions for controlled substances. Bryson has admitted authorizing the new doctor to use the previous doctor’s registration number to write prescriptions. Over a four-day period, the doctor wrote 79 prescriptions for more than 6,900 pills using the previous doctor’s registration number, until the temp agency discovered what was happening. He now faces up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines. He will be back in court for sentencing Sept. 23.
A Letcher County property was burglarized several times over a period of two months, so he installed a trail camera. As a result, five people were arrested Sunday in connection with the incidents. The property owner contacted Kentucky State Police about the burglaries, which resulted in the theft of a pickup truck, an ATV and numerous other items. He then showed a state trooper pictures from a trail camera, which showed several people taking items from the property. The trooper recognized two of the people in the pictures as David Bowling, 48, and Jessica Wells, 40, who live in a camper on Harold Dixon Cemetery Road. The trooper went to the camper, where he found several of the stolen items, but Bowling and Wells weren’t there. He then went to another home where the property owner had heard some more items could be found. At that location, police found several more items, along with Bowling, Wells and three other people. Bowling, Wells and Joshua Maggard, 40, of Blackey, admitted to police that they had taken items from the property. They were arrested and charged with second-degree burglary. The residents of the home — Robert Hollon, 55, and Paxton Madden, 63 — were also arrested and charged with receiving stolen property.
One week after a high-speed chase involving out-of-state suspects ended with a fatal crash in Wise County, a similar chase in Eastern Kentucky ended without injury. State troopers attempted to pull over a Kia Optima in Prestonsburg just after 4:30 a.m. Thursday, only to have the car speed away instead. The vehicle traveled south on U.S. 23 at speeds over 120 mph. At Ivel, police saw someone toss a package out of the car. Officers later retrieved the tossed package and found it to contain between 3 and 4 lbs. of meth inside, along with an ounce of fentanyl. Just before the car reached Pike County, the driver shut off the car’s lights and moved into the northbound lanes, narrowly missing several oncoming cars. Police called off the chase due to the danger involved, but later found the car parked in a driveway at Shelbiana. Inside the car were Ahmad Moore, 25, of Akron, Ohio; Navaeh Twitty, 20, of Akron, Ohio; and Dean Blair, 23, of Snellville, Ga. All three were arrested and charged with meth trafficking, aggravated fentanyl trafficking, fleeing police and other charges.
The general election ballot is set for city races in Floyd County as the deadline to file for those positions passed June 4. An unexpired term for Prestonsburg mayor along with city council or commission seats there and in Allen, Martin, Wayland and Wheelwright will be on the November ballot. A total of 36 people filed for city offices in Floyd County by the deadline. Seven candidates filed for the six-member Martin City Council
During its regular meeting on June 10, the Johnson County Fiscal Court approved the submission of their official request to allow UTV usage on two sections of state highways in Johnson County. The form that the court voted to approve, known as a TC-59, makes official their request, through a process established by the state, to allow the use of certain off-road vehicles on state highways designated as trail connectors, according to Johnson County Judge Mark McKenzie.
