Author pleads guilty to drug charge

RALEIGH The best-selling author was in a Wake County courtroom Tuesday to plea to two counts of obtaining property by fraud. The judge gave her a 90-day suspended jail sentence, fined her $300 and sentenced her to two years of probation.

Prosecutors said the 48-year-old Gibbons posed as a Florida doctor when she submitted a prescription online for hydrocodone. She was stopped Aug. 9 when she tried to pick up the prescription at a Raleigh pharmacy.

She was arrested on Nov. 2 at another pharmacy after a similar incident.

Her attorney, Roger Smith Jr., said she has received inpatient treatment and is currently undergoing outpatient treatment for her addiction.