'Drugstore Cowboy' author pleads guilty to pharmacy robbery

James Fogle, whose book "'Drugstore Cowboy" told the story of drug users who robbed pharmacies to feed their addiction, pleaded guilty in Seattle on Wednesday to a familiar crime: a pharmacy robbery.

Prosecutors will seek a 16-year prison term for Fogle, now in his 70s.

Fogle became famous beyond police lineups by writing a novel about longtime drug users who robbed pharmacies. Filmmaker Gus Van Sant turned the unpublished novel into a movie by the same name, "Drugstore Cowboy," in 1989, and Fogle's book hit shelves the following year.

Fogle also has spent significant stretches of his adult life in prison, sometimes for committing the sort of crimes he described in his novel.

Police say on May 25, 2010, Fogle and another man were trying to steal prescription drugs from Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, at 15840 Redmond Way. It's about a half mile from the Redmond police headquarters.

Police say minutes after the pharmacy's 9 p.m. closing Tuesday, Fogle and his alleged accomplice -- who in 1986 was convicted of a sex crime -- pushed their way into the pharmacy through a back exit door after Fogle flashed a gun in his waistband.

In addition to a pink bandanna, Fogle had a hood over his head and yellow latex gloves, according to court documents. Police say the accomplice wore a dark ski mask and a dark hooded sweatshirt.

Court documents show the robbers directed employees to the back of the pharmacy where the drugs were stored. One of the employees hit a silent alarm, made her way to doors and attempted to place paper pamphlets to keep it from closing and locking. She saw a woman customer outside and whispered for her to call 911.

The employee then went to the back of the store with the two other employees. One was zip tied and police say the accomplice had another open a secure area of the pharmacy where drugs were stored. The man dumped pills into two plastic trashcans, according to court documents

He then used zip ties to tie the other employees' hands behind their backs, police say.

"A short time later, James Fogle walked out the back door on the north side of the pharmacy carrying a plastic trash can in each hand," Redmond Detective Jeff Howerton wrote in an incident report.

Officers, who responded to the pharmacy in about two minutes, arrested him and determined the weapon was a BB gun modeled after a semiautomatic handgun. The trashcans he was carrying were full of pharmaceuticals, according to court documents.

About 20 seconds after Fogle was arrested, police say his accomplice walked out with the ski mask and dark gloves. He was arrested and officers found a loaded 32-caliber handgun on a shelf about 20 feet from the back door of the pharmacy.

The zip tied women told police "they feared for their lives and that they were concerned that they would be hurt or killed by the suspects," Howerton wrote.

King County court records show Fogle most recently landed in state prison following a conviction in a 2004 drugstore burglary.

Fogle was caught sleeping inside a Kent drugstore during an apparent early morning burglary attempt.

Kent officers called to the area by a silent alarm found Fogle prone on the drugstore floor near an open, emptied narcotics cabinet, according to police reports. Several paper bags had been filled with bottles of pills worth about $10,000 wholesale.

Investigators determined that Fogle, then 68, cut a hole in the store's roof and shimmied inside on a rope. Fogle later told detectives he'd fallen asleep due to a narcoleptic condition.

Speaking with detectives, the self-described drugstore cowboy disingenuously described himself as a methadone user who'd lost his prescription and suggested that a cellmate at Airway Heights Corrections Center gave him the idea to break into the Kent drugstore.

"This person told him that he had gotten a bunch of drugs by cutting through the roof and dropping into it," Kent Detective Robert K. Kaufmann told the court in 2004.

"He had gotten into the pharmacy and made a huge haul of drugs and was on the way out when he fell asleep," the detective continued. "His intent was to steal enough to buy a car and get a place to stay."

Described by police as having tattoos and scars too numerous to list, Fogle has a criminal history dating to 1954, according to court records.

Prior to the 3½-year sentence he received for the 2004 attempted burglary, Fogle had been sentenced to a four-year term in a 2001 Snohomish County burglary and a five-year term in a 1992 Pierce County drug conviction.

All told, he has previously been convicted of 14 felonies.