Reed girlfriend to appear before judge Monday (Read GRAND JURY CHARGES)

PANAMA CITY — Dr. Michael Reed’s girlfriend, Amy Cooper, is scheduled to appear in federal court Monday to face a drug charge.

Cooper, 35, is scheduled to go before U.S. Magistrate Larry Bodiford for an initial appearance on a charge of using a telephone to facilitate the crime of distribution and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. She faces up to four years in prison if convicted as charged.

Cooper was added Tuesday to the case that involves Reed, 55 — a local surgeon — and six other men who are accused of conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine in Bay County from 2006 to their arrests May 27, the same day that Cooper allegedly made her phone call.

"All I can tell you is, we’re scheduled to be in court Monday afternoon," Cooper’s attorney Jim Appleman said Wednesday. "We’ll appear at that time and enter a plea of not guilty."

Click here or the link at right to read the Grand Jury charges.

Cooper has a lengthy history with the state court system in Bay County. She’s been charged 17 times with misdemeanor passing worthless checks between 2002 and 2007. According to court records, she has bounced checks to Publix, Walmart, Domino’s Pizza and her former attorney, Martha "Sister" Blackmon-Milligan.

Milligan represented Cooper briefly in 2006 when she was charged with a felony count of acting as an unlicensed real estate broker. But Milligan left the case in December 2006 and by February 2007, Cooper had resolved the charge without an attorney when she agreed to go on pre-trial intervention, a form of probation. She successfully completed the program in seven months, even though she picked up more misdemeanor charges of passing worthless checks while on PTI.

The felony and the worthless check charges were all dismissed in 2007. Prosecutors noted that Cooper had paid the money she owed on the checks.

Cooper also has had notices of eviction filed against her and been ticketed for speeding in 2006 and 2007.

According to court records, she currently is involved in a lawsuit she filed against the Panama City Surgery Center. She claims that while undergoing a "sensitive" procedure in August 2007, someone working at the center called an uninvolved third-person and divulged information about her treatment. Surgery Center attorney Daniel Harmon called it "gossip" in a motion he filed to dismiss the lawsuit.

Harmon declined to comment when contacted at his office.

Cooper did not immediately return a telephone call seeking an interview for this story.