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Pain clinic raided
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City and county officers arrest Martin Keith Ball while assisting federal authorities with the execution of a search warrant at the Health Care Team Clinic at 409 East Broad Street Friday. - photo by Photo by Reed Vanderpool
The Federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), assisted by the Smithville Police Department and the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department, executed a search warrant at a local pain clinic early Friday afternoon.The three agencies jointly moved in to search the Health Care Team Clinic at 409 East Broad Street Friday after an apparent investigation of their narcotic dispensation practices by the DEA and the Tennessee Inspector General's Office.Smithville Police Chief Randy Caplinger and Sheriff Patrick Ray told the Review Friday that while they could not yet comment on the federal investigation, they did arrest two East Tennessee residents on unrelated charges during the search."The police department and sheriff's department, along with federal DEA agents, executed a search warrant at a pain clinic at 409 East Broad Street today." Caplinger said Friday.“We arrested Martin Keith Ball, 41, of Parrottsville, and 27-year-old Laura Jean Suggs of Newport for violation of probation out of Cocke County,” Ray shared.The sheriff said Ball and Suggs were picked up from the DeKalb County Jail by the Cocke County Sheriff's Department and transported to the Cocke County Jail.Suspicious activity at the clinic, including the obvious fact that a large number of the facility’s customers were apparently traveling from counties from as far as nearly 200 miles away to be seen at the clinic.