Bangor -
A Kenduskeag woman is going to jail for four years for stealing drugs from a Corinth pharmacy.
Tanya Strout pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon in a Bangor courtroom.
Her lawyer says she's just the state's poster child for drug store robberies.
In January, police say Tanya Strout went to the Community Pharmacy inside Whitney's Supermarket on Main Street in Corinth and gave employees a note saying she had a weapon and demanded drugs.
Six months later, Strout is pleading guilty to the crimes.
She got away with thousands of pills, including Oxycodone and Oxycontin.
" The biggest this year in terms of the number of pills stolen which is over 5,000, it's worth a lot of money and it's a problem in this area and it really had to be dealt with harshly," said Chris Almy, district attorney for Penobscot County.
Although the seven year sentence with all but four years suspended was a plea deal, Strout's lawyer feels the jail time is a bit stiff.
" It's unfortunate that Ms. Strout was convicted about the same time the state was searching around for a poster child to send a message on these types of robberies," said Steve Smith, Strout's lawyer.
Strout told the judge she was recovering from drug addiction at a methadone clinic, but says when she committed the crimes in January , she was high on the drug Bath Salts.
" That's a big factor in a lot of the cases that we're seeing in our courts and so I think it's generally a part of a big problem," said Almy.
Strout will be required to go to substance abuse counseling, but her lawyer thinks this sentence is not giving her the help she needs.
" I think if the state spent half as much of its resources on prevention as opposed to conviction and the incarceration that follows, we'd be a better off society," said Smith.
The pills Strout stole have never been found. She says she flushed them as soon as she realized what she had done.
Smith says he'd like the state to do more research on prescription medications, finding ways to make them more crush resistant and possibly putting a tax on them to fund treatment programs.
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