The Columbus Dispatch has an interesting story about a Nelsonville, Ohio pharmacist who filled prescriptions for an Internet prescribing group out of Florida.
NELSONVILLE, Ohio — This coal town on the way to Athens wouldn’t come to mind for most people naming hotbeds of the nation’s illegal drug trade.
Yet a family pharmacy here played a part in what federal authorities call an $85 million illicit-prescription ring.
In April, the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy concurred, saying that pharmacist Steve Holtel illegally sold more than 740,000 painkillers and tranquilizers over the Internet from his Stoltz Drugs store.
The board revoked the license of Holtel, who admits that he filled the prescriptions between October 2005 and February 2006. But he insists that he’s the victim of a con that roped in unsuspecting pharmacists, a fraud that authorities say netted two Florida men the lofty profit.
Holtel said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration wants him to repay more than $83,000 he made from filling the online prescriptions. It also has hinted that it might make him pay back the cost of the drugs, a $225,000 tab that Holtel said could force him to shut down Stoltz Drugs.
“If I screwed up, I understand that I screwed up,” Holtel told The Dispatch, but he doesn’t think that he should be penalized for life.
Holtel claims that he was told the patients actually saw a doctor in person to establish a doctor-patient-relationship. He also says “that on the first few days, he called dozens of patients to ask whether they had legitimate prescriptions. Satisfied that everything was OK, he continued to process orders.”
Recall the DEA’s congressional testimony about the rogue internet operators who take advantage of the innocent doctors? Here’s the proof.
