Defendant Prosecuted as Part of HOPE Initiative Which Seeks to Reduce the Number of Opioid-Related Deaths in New Mexico
ALBUQUERQUE - Sophia Ann Villalobos, 42, of Lubbock, Texas, pled guilty this week in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to unlawfully dispensing controlled substances. Under the terms of her plea agreement, Villalobos will be sentenced to a maximum of 12 months in prison.
Villalobos entered her guilty plea to a felony information on Jan. 9, 2018, that charged her with unlawfully dispensing a controlled substance, Oxycodone Hydrochloride, outside the usual course of medical practice and without any legitimate medical purpose. According to the information, Villalobos committed the crime on April 21, 2015, in Eddy County, N.M.
According to court documents, in 2015, Villalobos was a licensed Nurse Practitioner who had a medical practice in Carlsbad, N.M. In entering her guilty plea, Villalobos admitted that in early 2015, she wrote prescriptions for controlled substances for an individual without a valid medical reason. More specifically, Villalobos admitted that on April 21, 2015, she issued a prescription to an individual for 120 tablets of 30 mg Oxycodone Hydrochloride outside the usual course of medical practice and without any legitimate medical purpose.
According to court documents, on July 9, 2015, Villalobos surrendered her medical license and registration with the DEA, and is no longer authorized to dispense or prescribe controlled substances.
After entering the guilty plea, Villalobos was released under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Services and other conditions of release pending her sentencing hearing, which has yet to be scheduled.
This case was investigated by the DEA, New Mexico State Police and the Pecos Valley Drug Task Force. The Pecos Valley Drug Task Force is comprised of officers from the Eddy County Sheriff’s Office, Carlsbad Police Department and Artesia Police Department and is part of the HIDTA Region VI Drug Task Force. The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program was created by Congress with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. HIDTA is a program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) which provides assistance to federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States and seeks to reduce drug trafficking and production by facilitating coordinated law enforcement activities and information sharing.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard C. Williams and Sarah Davenport of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office are prosecuting the case pursuant to the New Mexico Heroin and Opioid Prevention and Education (HOPE) Initiative. The HOPE Initiative was launched in January 2015 by the UNM Health Sciences Center and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in response to the national opioid epidemic, which has had a disproportionately devastating impact on New Mexico. Opioid addiction has taken a toll on public safety, public health and the economic viability of our communities. Working in partnership with the DEA, the Bernalillo County Opioid Accountability Initiative, Healing Addiction in our Community (HAC), the Albuquerque Public Schools and other community stakeholders, HOPE’s principal goals are to protect our communities from the dangers associated with heroin and opioid painkillers and reducing the number of opioid-related deaths in New Mexico.
The HOPE Initiative is comprised of five components: (1) prevention and education; (2) treatment; (3) law enforcement; (4) reentry; and (5) strategic planning. HOPE’s law enforcement component is led by the Organized Crime Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DEA in conjunction with their federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement partners. Targeting members of major heroin and opioid trafficking organizations for investigation and prosecution is a priority of the HOPE Initiative. Learn more about the New Mexico HOPE Initiative at http://www.HopeInitiativeNM.org.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
