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REID SONS ARE SENT TO JAIL
"This definitely is new information that is extremely troubling," O'Neill said.
E. Marc Costanzo, the deputy attorney general who prosecuted the Reid brothers, said he believed that some of the pills had been legally prescribed to Garrett and that some had not.
Tammy and Andy Reid (right) leave court after their sons Garrett (top) and Britt (above) were sentenced to jail terms yesterday in Montgomery County.
Although Suboxone was prescribed to Garrett, he was not permitted to have the pills in his cell.
O'Neill said that it's possible that Garrett could face new charges in connection with the pills, but that the decision whether to file charges will be up to prison officials and county authorities.
O'Neill said he did not know whether Garrett had smuggled the pills into the jail because he had become so addicted to pharmaceuticals that he "wasn't going to suffer incarceration without them" or he intended to sell the drugs to other inmates.
"I just don't know," O'Neill said. "I don't know with you, and that's what scares me."
He noted that Garrett started drug treatment in October 2006 - about four months before the Jan. 30 heroin-induced accident.
Garrett and Britt had been in drug-rehab programs off and on for the past few years, without much success, O'Neill said.
He seemed skeptical of the drug treatment, which involved prescribing addictive medications like Valium and Adderall that they had been receiving from doctors at a Florida detox facility.
O'Neill faulted the Reids for allowing doctors to prescribe addictive pharmaceutical cocktails for their sons at an early age.
He noted that Britt Reid had been prescribed opiates, including Vicodin and morphine, when he was 14 after hurting his back playing football at Harriton High School.
It was no surprise that Britt became addicted to painkillers, O'Neill said.
"As adolescents, they were highly over-prescribed," O'Neill said.
Then they entered drug-rehab programs in which they were prescribed a cocktail of addictive meds, he said.
"Mother or father is laying these pills out for them," O'Neill said, "but they are not accountable." *
