By GINA KINSLOW
Glasgow Daily Times
GLASGOW — Roy Howard, a former employee of the Barren-Metcalfe County Emer-gency Medical Service and local law enforcement for numerous agencies, was arraigned on felony and misdemeanor forgery counts Monday morning.
Howard, 39, of 2435 Mount Pleasant Road, Glasgow, pleaded not guilty in Barren Circuit Court to all 22 charges brought against him.
A grand jury indicted him on Jan. 27 on charges stemming from crimes that occurred between September 2008 and April 2009. He is charged with 10 felony counts of criminal possession of a forged prescription and 12 misdemeanor counts of third-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, a misdemeanor. No proof for a trafficking charge has been found, according to Karen Davis, commonwealth’s attorney for Barren and Metcalfe counties.
Howard allegedly forged the signatures of doctors at T.J. Samson Community Hospital and fellow employees of the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Medical Service while he worked there, to illegally obtain large quantities of morphine.
Neither Howard nor his lawyer, Robert “Buddy” Alexander, had any comment about the case after the arraignment.
Davis decided to charge Howard for each victim in the cases as opposed to the original 295 counts on each of the three class D felony offenses, she said in a previous Glasgow Daily Times interview. Federal prosecutors examined the case but decided to send it back for grand jury proceedings.
Howard was arrested in Nashville on May 1, 2009, on a felony fugitive from justice warrant, and was held in Davidson County Correctional System on $100,000 bond before being moved to the Barren County Correction Center where his bond was reduced to $20,000. His father posted the bail and he was released May 6. At Monday’s arraignment, Circuit Judge Phil Patton released the $20,000 if Howard followed the bond conditions, one of which was completing drug treatment.
The first pre-trial conference is scheduled for April 12.
Howard was a former law enforcement officer with the Kentucky State Police from 1991 to 1999, the Park City Police Department from 2000-2004 and the Glasgow Police Department from 2004-2006. He was suspended without pay from the EMS following his May arrest and eventually terminated from his position, according to Mike Swift, EMS director.
