A California resident caught in what authorities said was the theft of large amounts of medication from a Glasgow pharmaceutical distributor has pleaded guilty.

Isaac Newman, 29, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green to charges of conspiring to commit theft of medical products and conspiring to distribute controlled substances.

Newman was one of three people, all from California, who were formally charged in November after investigators uncovered the theft of medications from distribution company Richie Pharmacal that authorities said would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the street.

Newman was accused of taking part in the conspiracy to steal the medications last year between July 9 and Oct. 18.

Police in Utah arrested Newman and a co-defendant, Sarah D-Auria, on Oct. 17, with law enforcement finding evidence in the vehicle in which they were stopped that tied them to the theft of 288 bottles of promethazine with codeine three days earlier from Richie Pharmacal.

The Glasgow Police Department initially responded to a reported theft at the company, where officials informed police that a promethazine shipment sent from an Ohio-based distributor had not arrived.

Police learned that the delivery driver carrying the drugs was met by a black car occupied by a man who said the loading dock was down and that the shipment needed to be loaded onto the bed of a white pickup truck parked near the Richie lot with the company logo on it.

Richie Pharmacal officials, however, confirmed to police that the company did not have a work vehicle in its fleet matching the description of the white truck, and the logo was later determined to have been either a printout or a magnetic placard placed on the door, according to court records.

After responding to the pharmaceutical company, police checked traffic camera systems and determined that the white truck had been rented by D’Auria and picked up in Nashville on Oct. 14, and the black car had been rented the same day by a third co-defendant, Robert Newman, and also picked up in Nashville.

Camera systems were used by investigators to subsequently track both vehicles, leading to the arrest of D’Auria and Isaac Newman.

According to court records, police in Utah who arrested the pair saw 14 large cardboard boxes in the back seat with labels stating that they contained promethazine.

A more thorough search found the boxes to contain 184, 16-ounce bottles of promethazine with codeine, with the drugs inside having a total street value of around $644,000, according to affidavit sworn by a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent in the criminal case.

Police also recovered a backpack from the truck that contained between $30,000 and $40,000 in cash, all in $20 bills, records show.

While the labels on the boxes described the drugs they contained, nothing on the boxes indicated the name of the shipping company or their intended destination, and labels containing that information appear to have been torn from the boxes.

“It is (our) belief that these labels were removed to keep anyone who might see the boxes from linking them as evidence of the theft from Richie Pharmacal,” the affidavit stated.

The charges to which Isaac Newman pleaded guilty carry a maximum penalty of 16 years in prison, but federal prosecutors indicated they will seek a sentence on the low end of recommended sentencing guidelines.

D’Auria has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing, while Robert Newman has pleaded not guilty.