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TALLAHASSEE, FL – A St. Johns County doctor received a 10-year prison sentence today after pleading guilty to drug-related charges, Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced. Lawrence M. Friedes admitted he played an active role in a drug trafficking operation that distributed illegally prescribed hydrocodone. Friedes pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking hydrocodone and one count of writing a prescription for monetary benefit. He was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution.

Friedes, 48, was arrested in February 2007 after selling more than 1,000 hydrocodone pills to an undercover police operative at two separate times, once in January 2007 and another in February 2007. Co-defendant William Normoyle sold more than 35,000 hydrocodone pills, worth more than $175,000 street value, to the same operative over a six-month period. Investigators with the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted the investigation and identified Friedes and Normoyle as the two sources of the illegal prescriptions. Friedes was working as a freelance doctor at the time of his arrest.

Today’s sentence was handed down by St. Augustine Circuit Court Judge Wendy Berger. In addition to his prison sentence, Friedes must also serve 10 years probation. Normoyle has not yet set a trial date.