BARRIE

Originally sentenced to nine years in prison, a medical secretary who forged fentanyl prescriptions for sale across Ontario was back on the streets after only 11 months.

Julie Baks, then 31, wept in the prisoner’s box in May 2014 as she pleaded guilty to forging and trafficking up to $400,000 of the highly-potent painkiller fentanyl — an opioid 20 times stronger than heroin.

By the following April, Baks was living at a residential facility and free on day passes. She is now on full day parole and scheduled to receive full parole in August.

It was sheer coincidence that Baks was caught on video creating forged fentanyl prescriptions while working in a doctor’s office in Barrie.

The doctor set up the hidden camera because he suspected she was stealing money from the petty cash drawer. Sure enough, the video captured Baks reaching into the drawer and putting money in her purse. She was sentenced to 60 days of house arrest with an ankle bracelet for theft.

But there was more.

Police soon realized the video also captured Baks involved in a sophisticated scheme with her boyfriend, Grenville Sinclair, 30, who would routinely stop by to bring her coffee. Inside the coffee cups were slips of paper with the names and health numbers of people which she then used to create patient profiles and prescriptions. She forged the doctor’s initials on fentanyl prescriptions, which were filled and sold to addicts.

“This was like allowing a drug dealer to enter the doctor’s office and steal the most addictive, most powerful drug, and put them out on our streets ... Any one of those patches could have caused a death,” Crown attorney Karen Jokinen said during Baks’ sentencing. “She stole the safety net that our public relies on — for greed.”

Jokinen blamed drug dealers for several fentanyl overdose deaths in Ontario.

“It can easily kill — it’s that potent,” she said.

Two months later, the Ontario Court of Appeal reduced Baks’ sentence from nine years to six years because she co-operated with police and testified against Sinclair, who was sentenced to nine years in prison. The high court blamed Sinclair for “instigating” her crimes.

“He (Sinclair) recruited her and enlisted her involvement,” the appeal court’s judgment said.

Baks was all set to make full parole in March, but while out on day parole, she sent a man she just met nude pictures of herself — a violation of her release terms to behave and report all relationships.

“You made a poor decision to engage in an unhealthy relationship during your first opportunity to do so ... You sent explicit nude photos to him,” a parole board ruling said.

In the end, the board allowed Baks to continue with day parole and confirmed full parole in August.

Baks is living in a residential facility in an unnamed city and has applied for subsidized housing in preparation for her freedom this summer.

Her early release doesn’t sit well with others who were sent to prison, like the less sophisticated 24-year-old fentanyl addict who was coincidentally sentenced the same day in the same courthouse to four years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of trafficking fentanyl.

His lawyer told the court he participated in selling a small amount of the drug to make enough money to support his own drug habit.

“He got thrown under the bus, why? Because he’s a drug user?” said his mother, Kim, who asked that her last name not be used. She described years of family turmoil while dealing with her son’s addiction.

“This is a woman (Baks) who helped put this drug out on the streets so other people’s kids can get addicted. And she gets a slap on the wrist.”

'SHOCKED' AT EARLY RELEASE

A mother whose 19-year-old daughter died of a fentanyl overdose says she’s “shocked” that a medical secretary who forged over 1000 fentanyl prescriptions is on release from prison after serving only 11 months.

The secretary, Julie Baks, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2014 but the Court of Appeal later lowered it to six years. She is now on full day parole and authorities have scheduled her to receive full parole in August.

“I was honestly shocked,” said Sherri Dolk, forever grieving after her daughter, Tina Espey, died from a toxic level of fentanyl that she bought on the streets in Barrie three years ago.

“The heartache never goes away,” she said.

Dolk said people at the “top rung” of the drug ladder should get meaningful sentences.

“This secretary was an integral part of the operation,” she said. “Any one of a number of young people addicted to drugs could have died after taking drugs from one of those prescriptions.”

Dolk has become a public supporter of efforts to rid the streets of the potent painkiller and campaigns for programs designed to help addicts.

“What confuses me is that the low-level drug sellers, who are only selling to support their own addictions, are not getting the same break from prison sentences,” she said. “They seem to be treated like trash, yet they are the ones who need help.”

FENTANYL-RELATED DEATHS 'STAGGERING'

Prof. David Juurlink, a scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, says the number of fentanyl-related deaths in the country is “staggering.”

He estimates 25,000 Canadians have died from opioids since 1995, and an untold number now suffer from addiction.

“These drugs are making their way into the streets in epidemic proportions.”

Juurlink says while doctors are prescribing the potent drug, as well as the painkiller Oxycontin, for chronic pain, opioids should only be used for end-of-life situations.

“We have a generation of doctors who were taught that opioids are effective for chronic pain and it’s gone off the roof,” Juurlink says. “It’s clear now that we were all objects in an elaborate marketing effort ... of pharmaceutical companies.”