Louisville KY man indicted for allegedly writing illegal prescriptions for cough syrup

A Louisville man was indicted Thursday for illegally purchasing cough syrup throughout several Kentucky counties using fake identities, according to court documents.

Darius Murff, 33, was charged by a federal grand jury out of the eastern district for one count of conspiracy to purchase controlled substances through fraudulent means, and three counts of aggravated identity theft.

Since July 2019, Murff is alleged to have worked with others to purchase promethazine-codeine cough syrup using unauthorized, fraudulent prescriptions, court documents state.

Murff is thought to have purchased the controlled substance in Fayette, Woodford, and Franklin counties.

According to the indictment, Murff illegally obtained medical prescription authorization information related to multiple doctors’ names, their Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) numbers, office addresses and phone numbers.

Murff would also illegally obtain driver’s licenses of Kentucky residents and others from different states.

Murff and other unknown co-conspirators would use the doctors’ information to submit electronic faxed prescriptions for cough syrup to pharmacies, according to court documents.

Some of these prescriptions included the names of people who were matched to stolen driver’s licenses or photographs of stolen documents that Murff possessed.

After the prescriptions were submitted, Murff and others would drive to the pharmacies and go inside and pick up the codeine cough syrup, according to the indictment.

Murff faces up to six years in prison, and up to $500,000 in fines if convicted on all charges. He would be on supervised released for up to two years.