Easley Men Sentenced in Oxycodone Conspiracy

Three Easley men have pleaded guilty and sentenced for creating a local drug ring that sold the highly addictive drug oxycodone, US Attorney Bill Nettles said Thursday.

Sentenced in federal court in Anderson were: Richard Jody Silvers, 43, (175 months) Heath A. Cash, 30, (96 months) and Gabriel E. Calderon, 27, (46 months).

Nettles said Silvers created fraudulent prescriptions for oxycodone (90 tablets per prescription and 30mg dosage units) and recruited individuals to pass the prescriptions. The conspiracy sold the pills for $20 each.  

Some addicts serviced by the conspiracy used as many as 15 to 20 oxycodone tablets per day, Nettles said. Silvers would pay the prescriptions passers a small amount of money for passing the prescriptions or give them a quantity of the pills received from the prescriptions.  

Silvers recruited Cash as a prescription passer, but when Silvers was arrested on drug charges Cash and Shelley Nicole Dillard, who has pled guilty but has not been sentenced, took over the creation of fraudulent prescriptions and the recruitments of accomplices, Nettles said. 

Calderon was recruited by Cash and passed approximately 10 prescriptions for the benefit of the conspiracy. The conspiracy operated from April 2011 until approximately August 2012 when multiple arrests were made. Law enforcement recovered approximately 80 fraudulent prescriptions that had been created by Silvers and his conspirators, Nettles said.