Mom 'cuffed, printed and taken to court gets apology from feds

Jennifer Castro was helping her children get ready for school yesterday when federal agents knocked on her door with a warrant for her arrest.

"I asked what it was all about," Castro said. "My kids were running around, freaking out."

Drug charges, she was told. Stealing prescription pads.

"I told them there's no way it's me," Castro said. "The agents were very nice. They said they had me on tape. They told me to tell it to the court."

By the time everyone reached court in the early afternoon, agents figured out that Castro was telling the truth. The government's source - their snitch - had fingered the wrong person.

Castro was not, as the snitch said, a receptionist working at the targeted doctor's office. Castro, 32, of the Frankford section of Philadelphia, doesn't even work; she's disabled and collects Social Security payments.

It turns out Castro was a patient of the doctor arrested yesterday - Evelyn F.P. Sabugo - on drug charges. Perhaps, Castro said, someone used her identity to forge prescriptions.

During a brief court hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Votaw apologized and asked to have Castro freed. U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda K. Caracappa did so, calling the matter an "honest, innocent mistake."

Afterward, federal agents in the case - from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Health and Human Services - apologized again to her.

She told them she understood - but a few moments later she said in an interview that she and her husband were still reeling from the arrest.

"Look at her eyes," Rivaldo Santiago said. "They're still puffed, bruised from so much crying."

"I'm so embarrassed," she said. "My little one is a mess. If my kids weren't there, I wouldn't be so mad."

"Crazy," her husband said.

"I went through everything," she said. "Handcuffs, fingerprinting, mug shot. They told me I was facing 25 years."

"Traumatizing," her husband said.

What went wrong?

Votaw said she couldn't comment yet - beyond repeating an apology and reiterating that it was an honest mistake.

Some clues were in three affidavits filed in the case by Mark Cavallucci, an agent of the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General:

For about six months, the HHS, FBI and DEA had been investigating Sabugo and others at her office at the 450 Medical Center on West Dauphin Street in Philadelphia.

One of Sabugo's secretaries, Vanessa Redding, was suspected of selling stolen prescription pads to patients for cash. Redding was arrested yesterday, too.

The government's unnamed "confidential witness," who had been buying huge amounts of prescription painkiller with scripts Redding allegedly provided, was arrested Sept. 12 on a charge of prescription fraud - then agreed to cooperate with agents.

According to the HHS affidavit, the informant claimed she also bought blank prescription pads from a receptionist the informant identified as Jennifer Castro. The woman's nickname was "Cookie," the informant said.

Castro, the chagrined agents now know, might look a lot like the woman who calls herself Cookie. But Castro is not Cookie.

Yesterday, the judge signed a new warrant for Cookie, her true name still under seal. Authorities said they were confidant that by today they would have the right woman in custody.