- January 5, 2025
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Howard Perch, the administrator for Florida Hospital Oceanside in Ormond Beach, was arrested Tuesday after a nearly three-year-long investigation for falsely obtaining prescription drugs. He's accused of using other people's information — including his child's — to get prescriptions for pain pills like hydrocodone.
The 50-year-old Ormond Beach resident was first investigated in July 2014, after a Walgreens pharmacist notified police when she received a suspicious prescription. According to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office's charging affidavit, the pharmacist said it was rare to get call-in prescriptions on weekends.
She contacted the ordering physician, and he claimed he didn't write it. During the lengthy investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration agents discovered that Perch used his child's information at least twice to get pills and that he was using a prescription for the same pain pills from two different doctors.
The Ormond Beach Observer wrote about Perch's new role at Oceanside in January 2015, and he had stated that when he was a student at Flagler Palm Coast High School in the early 1980s, he would often drive by the hospital and think about how he’d like to work there someday.
Perch is facing charges of fraudulently obtaining controlled substances, trafficking in hydrocodone and concealing information to obtain a prescription, records show. He has since been released from the Volusia County Branch Jail on bail.
