Video: Truck driver poses as Washington State Patrol trooper

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ARLINGTON, Wash. - A long-haul trucker from Idaho who police say spent the last decade posing as a Washington State trooper was charged in Snohomish County this week, but has since disappeared again.

Police arrested 51-year-old Ronald Johnson May 6.

They say the Wallace, Idaho resident visited an Arlington Rite-Aid last October to fill what turned out to be a phony prescription for OxyContin.

"He had his Washington State Patrol coat on and this German Shepard with Washington State Patrol patches on in," said Arlington Police Chief John Gray.

When Johnson's debit card was rejected, police say he told the pharmacist he had cash in his car and then took the medication without paying for it.

An officer spotted Johnson last week and arrested him. Police say he admitted to everything and then posted bail.

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Police say the suspect wears a coat with Washington State Patrol patches on it.

Within a few hours they say he was back at it at an Arlington hotel, where Kristina Nelson checked him in. She says he left without paying.

"He was wearing a police badge here, had a K-9 dog with him," Nelson said. "It was very unsettling to know that we have somebody persuading people into believing that he is a police officer."

Gray says it's a scheme that the man has been running for years all across the northwest - passing himself off as a K-9 trooper to convince doctors to write him prescriptions and pharmacists to fill them.

"When we've gone to pharmacies and doctors they remember him because he presents himself in a uniform," Gray said.

Real K-9 trooper Chris Caiola worries how this affects his and his colleagues' reputations.

"That somebody can just slap a couple badges on a dog and a black uniform and say they're us I think puts that at risk," Caiola said.