Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 25, 1995                   TAG: 9506260070
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

TEA-BAG HEIR GUILTY OF PRESCRIPTION FRAUD

Albemarle County Circuit Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ordered Dexter Drake Coffin III to serve two years of a five-year sentence for the crime, the latest in his long line of offenses over the last three decades.

His criminal record, which dates back to 1972, includes prescription fraud and worthless-check offenses in Florida and Virginia.

Coffin was convicted of calling a pharmacy on Sept. 30 and posing as a doctor wishing to prescribe 40 tablets of Lorcet, a narcotic painkiller. The pharmacist recognized Coffin's voice from past encounters with him and alerted others that the prescription was bogus.

Coffin, whose family invented the ``Flo-Thru'' tea bag, inherited $19 million.

William H. Parcell III, who represented Coffin, met him 10 years ago when he prosecuted him for a similar offense.

- Associated Press