By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Matthew Lowry seemed to have everything going for him.
He worked for an elite drug task force after graduating with honors from the FBI Academy. His wife was pregnant with their first child.
Trouble is, Lowry had become addicted to pain medication to ease his chronic and painful inflammations of the intestines and needed a way to get through the day. The pain medication wasn’t enough and it was getting too expensive.
That’s when Lowry said he first stole evidence – a bag of heroin.
“Within 15 minutes, I was fine,” Lowry told the Washington Post. “It gave me energy. It made me feel euphoric, like I had confidence. You feel like you can take on anything.”
Lowry, now 33, kept up the secret life for about a year until he was arrested. The discovery that he was stealing evidence forced prosecutors to dismiss cases against 28 defendants.
On July 9, Lowry faces prison time on 64 criminal charges, including obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence and possession of drugs, according to the Post report.
“Where am I going to be a couple months from now?” Lowry said, holding his son, who is now 16 months old. “How is my wife going to raise my son? How is she going to take care of the house? I spend as much time as I can with my wife, with my son, with my parents, because I don’t know when it’s going to stop, and I’m not going to be able to see them for an extended amount of time.”
