A resident of The Villages with a long criminal history is heading to prison after repeatedly trying to obtain pills at Walgreens and other pharmacies.
Justin Childs, 30, who had lived for several of the past years on Sellers Court in the Emmalee Villas in the Village of Mallory Square, has been sentenced to four years in prison. In the sentencing hearing last week in Sumter County Court, Childs was given credit for 391 days already served in the Sumter Court Detention Center, where he has been lodged since July 23, 2021.
The Boca Raton native had been released in 2017 from a Florida prison after serving four years on charges of burglary and grand theft. Shortly after his release from prison, Childs found his way to Florida’s Friendliest Hometown. While living in the Emmalee Villas, he befriended a 74-year-old neighbor who had recently lost his wife. Childs was arrested after allegedly helping himself to the man’s bank account. The man later died. His villa was in foreclosure with the utilities shut off, when his abandoned home was the subject of a public hearing last year before the Community Development District 6 Board of Supervisors.
After that arrest was cleared when the prosecutor’s office dropped charges, Childs began doctor shopping in a frantic attempt to obtain a steady supply of pain pills. An investigation showed Childs had visited “multiple different doctors” requesting pain medication. A doctor at Creekside Medical at Lake Sumter Landing told investigators he discharged Childs as a patient because of his many requests for pain pills.
In June 2021, Childs schemed to get bogus prescriptions filled at Walgreens pharmacies at Colony Plaza, Spanish Plaines Plaza and Lake Deaton Plaza. In desperation, Childs found a man through a “hookup” and enlisted him to retrieve the bogus prescriptions for him. Childs instructed the man to pick him up at the Kablitz home which was in foreclosure and under the cloud of the deed compliance case. The man later told detectives he did not know what Childs was up to, according to an arrest report.
