Office Manager for Chicago Medical Practice Sentenced to a Year in Federal Prison for Fraudulently Writing Opioid Prescriptions
Office Manager for Chicago Medical Practice Sentenced to a Year in Federal Prison for Fraudulently Writing Opioid Prescriptions (Chicago, IL) — An office manager for a Chicago medical practice has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for fraudulently writing opioid prescriptions.
ROSEMARY MAYS worked for a medical practice on the South Side of Chicago. From 2009 to 2016, Mays conspired with another individual to write more than 3,000 fraudulent prescriptions for hydrocodone, oxycodone, and other controlled substances. Mays used a prescription pad belonging to a doctor in the practice and wrote the prescriptions in her own name and the names of dozens of unsuspecting friends and family members who had not been treated by the doctor and had no legitimate medical need for the controlled substances. Mays and her co-conspirator then caused friends and family members to fill the fraudulent prescriptions at pharmacies in the Chicago area and provide the opioids to Mays and the co-conspirator. After the fraudulent prescriptions were filled, some of the controlled substances were sold throughout the Chicago area for a profit.
Mays attempted to conceal the scheme by creating fake patient profiles for the individuals whose names she put on the fraudulent prescriptions to make it seem as if the individuals had been treated by the doctor and prescribed the opioids. In reality, they were not patients of the doctor and had not been prescribed any medications by the doctor.
Mays, 47, of South Holland, Ill., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to dispense and distribute a controlled substance outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose or practitioner license. U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland imposed the year-and-a-day prison sentence Wednesday in federal court in Chicago.
The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Robert J. Bell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the DEA Chicago Field Division; John Morales, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; and Mario Pinto, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Chicago Regional Office.
“Defendant was the key player in a multi-year criminal conspiracy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard M. Rothblatt argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “Defendant abused the trust of a doctor with whom she worked to write thousands of fraudulent prescriptions for dangerous and addictive opioids.”
Office Manager for Chicago Medical Practice Sentenced to a Year in Federal Prison for Fraudulently Writing Opioid Prescriptions
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