Courtesy photo/Booking mug
Michael Michaud, a Port Orange firefighter, is accused of stealing 12,000 prescription pills.
EDGEWATER -- An Edgewater firefighter was placed on paid administrative leave while investigators try and determine whether she had any knowledge or participated in the theft of prescription pills alleged against her firefighter-husband in Port Orange even as there is no direct link established other than the bond of marriage.
Edgewater Fire Chief Steve Cousins, acknowledging he had "nothing to go on" said because an arrest warrant was served on Michael Michaud, alleging the theft of 12,000 pills from people's homes, authorities need to deterine whether Ashley Michaud had any knowledge or participated in the thefts.
Ashley Michaud, 23, hired in 2006 by the Edgewater Fire Department, married her 38-year-old husband last month.
Michael Michaud, employed by Port Orange for 11 years, was arrested Monday on charges of grand theft, scheme to defraud and burglary f a residence with an occupant inside. He was was released on $5,000 bail from the Volusia County Branch Jail later in the day.
Port Orange police allege Michael Michaud stole prescription pills from at least four different residences while on medical calls while falsely talking his way into his victims' homes to obtain medications.
The arrest resulted from a search warrant of Michaud's home, in which the medications were recovered medicines written for a patient who died. Michaud had visited a residence for a second time under pretense of doing a follow-up on a patient, which made a relative suspicious after it was discovered prescriptions were missing, police said.
The Michauds could not be reached for comment.