JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A judge on Wednesday set bond for three people arrested in a drug raid at a Northside health clinic as the daughter of one of the suspects spoke out, saying police have made a mistake.
Jacksonville police raided the S&P Medical Clinic on Tuesday after eight months of investigating. Detectives said the center was nothing more than a pill mill, where medical professionals were dispensing prescription drugs for cash.
The clinic doctor, David Maurer, and his physician's assistant, Sandra Lindstrom, face a variety of drug-related charges of conspiring to traffic hydrocodone and conspiracy to sell controlled substances.
The third suspect, Electus Slater, is charged with money laundering.
Lindstrom's daughter, Danika Sherrill, told Channel 4 her mother and one of the other co-defendants started the Northside clinic together. She said when she heard about the arrests she was shocked, and said the charges can't be true.
"My mom is the most biggest, hardest ... most loving person and would never do anything like this to hurt anybody," Sherrill said.
She attended her mom's first appearance at the Duval County Courthouse and said her mother valued her job as a physician's assistant too much to do anything illegal.
"She would never do anything medically to ruin her license, her career, her future, her retirement," Sherrill said.
Sherrill's mother faces a slew of charges associated with allegations she sold painkillers for profit to patients who were not medically ill. Sherrill said the charges are not true.
"I mean, if you go in there you see people with missing arms, you see people in wheelchairs, you see people missing body parts … these people are in pain," Sherrill said.
Channel 4 cameras caught numerous people being interviewed in the clinic's parking lot after the raid. However, none of those patients were in wheelchairs or had missing limbs.
Police said 40 percent of S&P Medical Clinic's patients drove from Georgia and said that on any given day there was a line out the door of people waiting to see Maurer or Lindstrom.
"I think it' s a big mix-up," Sherrill said.
Police said they conducted nine different undercover buys inside the S&P Medical Clinic with officers posing as patients.
Bond for all three of the suspects arrested in the raid was set to at least $1 million.
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