Monessen woman gets probation after making deal in drug operation case

A Monessen woman was sentenced Tuesday to three years probation in connection with what police said was a drug distribution ring operating out of a Greensburg doctor’s office.

Rebekah Rose Carwithen, 25, pleaded guilty to one count of drug possession and in return state prosecutors dismissed charges of conspiracy, corruption, forgery and identity theft.

According to court records, Carwithen was one of six people charged in a plot to acquire prescription opioids, specifically Suboxone, a drug used to wean heroin addicts. The drugs were illegally purchased in 2015 and 2016 at various pharmacies throughout Westmoreland and Fayette counties, authorities said. Police said the former office manager and a patient of Greensburg physician Dr.Nabil Jabbour falsified prescriptions and Carwithen and others allowed their identifies to be used to obtain the medication and also posed as other patients.

Police said Jabbour’s office manager, Sabrina Thomas, 27, of Fairbank, Fayette County, and former patient, Brook Cross, 27, of Largo, Fla., spearheaded the drug operation.

In court Tuesday, Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio imposed the probation sentence and ordered Carwithen to complete drug and alcohol treatment.

Thomas, Cross and three others, Rhonda Anthony, 43, Jacqueline R. Keys, 33, and Adam Fincik, 24, all of West Newton, were scheduled to appear before Bilik DeFazio for a November trial but those cases have since been postponed.

Jabbour, 68, of Greensburg, is awaiting trial on federal charges of insurance fraud and for the unlawful distribution of prescription drugs. His trial in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh is scheduled to begin Dec. 2.