After a Vancouver pain clinic lost the ability to prescribe painkillers, Larae Corzine a year ago said her family was in dire straits.
Her husband, Steve, was a longtime patient at the Payette Clinic, which forfeited its rights to prescribe opioids last year after federal agents linked the clinic to the overdose death of an Oregon teen.
Corzine told a newspaper reporter in April 2009 that other doctors in town wouldn’t see her husband, who she said suffers from reflex sympathetic dystrophy, because they were afraid he was addicted to Oxycontin. She said her husband was in pain, was not an addict, and needed help.
“The pain is 10 times worse than it’s ever been,” Corzine told The Columbian last year. “He’s vomiting and shaking. I’m surprised he hasn’t gone into seizures.”
Now, the distressed wife is behind bars and charged with three Vancouver pharmacy robberies and an attempted robbery on a fourth occasion. The alleged drug of choice: Oxycontin.
The 39-year-old Vancouver woman was arraigned Thursday on the most recently filed charge of first-degree attempted robbery relating to a June 18 holdup attempt at the Vancouver Clinic pharmacy, 501 S.E. 172nd Ave.
Corzine also is charged with three counts of first-degree robbery relating to the April 20, June 14 and June 18 holdups of the Bi-Mart pharmacy, 11912 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd.
She is being held in the Clark County Jail in lieu of $300,000 bail.
Trial has been set for Oct. 18.
Corzine was first arrested after the June 18 Bi-Mart robbery when a suspect sped away from police in a green Ford Taurus and crashed into an SUV at Northeast 63rd Street and 58th Avenue. In the collision, both cars were knocked off the road and the Taurus caught fire, deputies said.
After taken to Southwest Washington Medical Center and later jailed, investigators allegedly linked Corzine to the other robberies through surveillance video and witness identifications, according to court documents.
In each robbery, the bandit had a black gun tucked in her front waistband and made threatening requests for Oxycontin. In the Vancouver Clinic Pharmacy holdup, the robber said, “Give me Oxycontin 80 (mg) — I have a gun,” according to court documents. She then counted down from 10.
Two pharmacy clerks escaped into an office, called 911 and the robber fled.
Corzine’s case isn’t the first evidence of fallout from the Payette Clinic. Of the 800 former patients, the Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that half were physically dependent on narcotics. The clinic remains open under a new name, Walnut Grove Medical and Mental Health Clinic.
In September 2009, another former Payette patient, Harold Andres Jr., was sentenced to four years and seven months in prison after pleading guilty to three Safeway pharmacy robberies earlier that year for oxycodone.
Laura McVicker: 360-735-4516 or laura.mcvicker@columbian.com.
