Category: Tennessee

Médicos se apresuran a usar fallo de la Corte Suprema para liberarse de cargos por opioides

En una decisión de junio, el tribunal dijo que los fiscales no solo deben probar que una receta no estaba médicamente justificada sino también que el que la escribió sabía del riesgo de recetar opioides.

El doctor Nelson Onaro admitió el verano pasado que había escrito recetas ilegales, aunque dijo que solo pensaba en sus pacientes. Desde una pequeña clínica en Oklahoma, repartió cientos de pastillas de opioides y docenas de parches de fentanilo sin un propósito médico legítimo.

“Esos medicamentos fueron recetados para ayudar a mis pacientes, desde mi propio punto de vista”, dijo Onaro en la corte, mientras, a regañadientes, se declaraba culpable de seis cargos de tráfico de drogas. Al confesar, podría haber recibido una sentencia reducida de tres años o menos en prisión.

Pero Onaro cambió de opinión en julio. En los días previos a su sentencia, le pidió a un juez federal que desestimara su acuerdo de culpabilidad, enviando su caso a juicio. Para tener la oportunidad de ser exonerado, enfrentaría cuatro veces más cargos y la posibilidad de una sentencia más severa.

¿Por qué correr el riesgo? Un fallo de la Corte Suprema ha elevado el umbral para condenar en casos como el de Onaro. En una decisión de junio, el tribunal dijo que los fiscales no solo deben probar que una receta no estaba médicamente justificada sino también que el que la escribió sabía del riesgo.

De repente, el estado mental de Onaro tiene más peso en la corte. Los fiscales no se han opuesto a que el médico retire su declaración de culpabilidad de la mayoría de los cargos, admitiendo en una presentación judicial que enfrenta “un cálculo legal diferente” después de la decisión de la Corte Suprema.

El fallo unánime de la Corte complica los esfuerzos continuos del Departamento de Justicia para responsabilizar penalmente a los que recetan de manera irresponsable por alimentar la crisis de opioides.

Antes, los tribunales inferiores no habían considerado la intención del que recetaba. Hasta ahora, los médicos enjuiciados en gran medida no podían defenderse argumentando que estaban actuando de buena fe cuando emitían recetas incorrectas. Ahora pueden, aunque no es necesariamente una garantía para salir de la cárcel, dicen los abogados.

“Esencialmente, a los médicos se los esposaba”, dijo Zach Enlow, abogado de Onaro. “Ahora pueden quitarse las esposas. Pero eso no significa que van a ganar la pelea”.

La decisión de la Corte Suprema en Ruan vs. Estados Unidos, emitida el 27 de junio, fue eclipsada por la controversia nacional tres días antes, cuando el tribunal anuló los derechos federales del aborto.

Pero el fallo, menos conocido ahora, se está filtrando en silencio a través de los tribunales federales, fortaleciendo a los acusados ​​en los casos de abuso de recetas y puede tener un efecto escalofriante en futuros juicios a médicos bajo el Controlled Substance Act.

En los tres meses desde que se emitió, la decisión de Ruan se ha invocado en al menos 15 juicios en curso en 10 estados, según una revisión de KHN de los registros de la corte federal.

Los médicos citaron la decisión en las apelaciones posteriores a la condena, las mociones para absoluciones, nuevos juicios, reversiones de culpabilidad y un intento fallido de excluir el testimonio de un experto en prescripciones, argumentando que su opinión ahora era irrelevante. Otros acusados ​​han solicitado con éxito retrasar sus casos para que la decisión de Ruan pueda verse utilizarse en sus argumentos en los próximos juicios o audiencias de sentencia.

David Rivera, ex fiscal estadounidense de la era Obama, quien lideró juicios sobre abuso de prescripciones en Tennessee, dijo que cree que los médicos tienen una “gran oportunidad” de anular las condenas si se les prohibió discutir una defensa de buena fe o se instruyó a un jurado que ignorara este argumento.

Rivera dijo que los acusados ​​que movilizaban cientos de miles de pastillas aún serían condenados, incluso si finalmente se requiriera un segundo juicio. Pero la Corte Suprema ha extendido un “salvavidas” a un grupo pequeño de acusados ​​que “dispensaron con su corazón, no con su mente”, dijo.

“Lo que la Corte Suprema está tratando de hacer es dividir entre un médico malo y una persona que podría tener una licencia para practicar la medicina pero que no actúa como médico y es un traficante de drogas”, dijo Rivera. “Un médico que actúa bajo una creencia sinceramente sostenida de que está haciendo lo correcto, incluso si puede ser horrible en su trabajo y no se le deben confiar vidas, incluso eso no es criminal”.

La decisión de Ruan fue el resultado de las apelaciones de dos médicos, Xiulu Ruan y Shakeel Kahn, quienes fueron condenados por separado por recetar píldoras en Alabama y Wyoming, respectivamente, y sentenciados a 21 y 25 años de prisión. En ambos casos, los fiscales se basaron en una táctica común para mostrar que las recetas eran un delito: los testigos expertos revisaron las recetas de los acusados ​​y testificaron que estaban fuera de lugar con lo que un médico razonable haría.

Pero al escribir la opinión de la Corte Suprema, el entonces juez Stephen Breyer insistió en que la carga de la prueba no debería ser tan simple de superar, devolviendo ambas condenas a los tribunales inferiores para su reconsideración.

Debido a que a los médicos se les permite, y se espera, que distribuyan drogas, escribió Breyer, los fiscales no solo deben demostrar que escribieron recetas sin propósito médico, sino que también lo hicieron “a sabiendas o intencionalmente”. De lo contrario, los tribunales corren el riesgo de castigar “conductas que se encuentran cerca, pero en el lado permitido de la línea criminal”, escribió Breyer.

Para los abogados defensores, el fallo unánime envió un mensaje inequívoco.

“Este es un tiempo hiperpolarizado en Estados Unidos, y particularmente en la corte”, dijo Enlow. “Sin embargo, este fue un fallo de 9-0 que decía que el mens rea, o el estado mental del médico, es importante”.

Tal vez en ninguna parte la decisión de Ruan fue más apremiante que en el caso del doctor David Jankowski, un médico de Michigan que estaba en juicio.

Jankowski fue condenado por crímenes federales de drogas y fraude y enfrenta 20 años de prisión. En un anuncio del veredicto, el Departamento de Justicia dijo que el médico y su clínica suministraron a las personas “sin necesidad de drogas”, que se “vendían en las calles para alimentar las adicciones de los adictos a los opioides”.

La abogada defensora Anjali Prasad dijo que el fallo de Ruan llegٕó antes de las deliberaciones del jurado en el caso, pero después de que los fiscales pasaran semanas presentando el argumento de que el comportamiento de Jankowski no fue el de alguien que prescribe de manera razonable, un estándar legal que ya no es suficiente para convencer.

Prasad citó la decisión de Ruan en una moción para un nuevo juicio, que fue denegada, y dijo que tiene la intención de utilizar la decisión como base para una próxima apelación. La abogada también dijo que está discutiendo con otros dos clientes sobre apelar sus condenas en base a Ruan.

“Espero que los abogados de defensa penal como yo estén más fortalecidos para llevar sus casos a juicio y que sus clientes estén 100% listos para luchar contra los federales, lo cual no es una tarea fácil”, dijo Prasad.

Algunos acusados ​​lo están intentando. Hasta ahora, algunos han obtenido pequeñas victorias. Y al menos uno sufrió una derrota aplastante.

En Tennessee, la enfermera practicante Jeffrey Young, acusada de intercambiar opioides por sexo y notoriedad para ser parte de un piloto de un reality show, retrasó con éxito su juicio de mayo a noviembre para dar cuenta de la decisión de Ruan, argumentando que “alteraría drásticamente el paisaje de la guerra del gobierno contra los que hacen recetas”.

También en Tennessee, Samson Orusa, un médico y pastor que el año pasado fue condenado por entregar recetas de opioides sin examinar a los pacientes, presentó una moción para un nuevo juicio basado en la decisión de Ruan, luego persuadió a un juez reacio a retrasar su sentencia durante seis meses. para considerarlo.

Y en Ohio, el doctor Martin Escobar citó el fallo de Ruan en un argumento de 11 horas para evitar la prisión.

En enero, Escobar se declaró culpable de 54 cargos de distribución de sustancias controladas, incluidas las recetas que causaron la muerte de dos pacientes. Después de la decisión de Ruan, Escobar intentó retirar su petición, diciendo que habría ido a juicio si hubiera sabido que los fiscales tenían que demostrar intencionalidad.

Una semana después, el día en que Escobar fue sentenciado, un juez federal negó la moción.

Su declaración de culpabilidad permaneció.

Escobar fue condenado a 25 años.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Doctors Rush to Use Supreme Court Ruling to Escape Opioid Charges

After a unanimous ruling from the high court, doctors who are accused of writing irresponsible prescriptions can go to trial with a new defense: It wasn’t on purpose.

Dr. Nelson Onaro conceded last summer that he’d written illegal prescriptions, although he said he was thinking only of his patients. From a tiny, brick clinic in Oklahoma, he doled out hundreds of opioid pills and dozens of fentanyl patches with no legitimate medical purpose.

“Those medications were prescribed to help my patients, from my own point of view,” Onaro said in court, as he reluctantly pleaded guilty to six counts of drug dealing. Because he confessed, the doctor was likely to get a reduced sentence of three years or less in prison.

But Onaro changed his mind in July. In the days before his sentencing, he asked a federal judge to throw out his plea deal, sending his case toward a trial. For a chance at exoneration, he’d face four times the charges and the possibility of a harsher sentence.

Why take the risk? A Supreme Court ruling has raised the bar to convict in a case like Onaro’s. In a June decision, the court said prosecutors must not only prove a prescription was not medically justified ― possibly because it was too large or dangerous, or simply unnecessary ― but also that the prescriber knew as much.

Suddenly, Onaro’s state of mind carries more weight in court. Prosecutors have not opposed the doctor withdrawing his plea to most of his charges, conceding in a court filing that he faces “a different legal calculus” after the Supreme Court decision.

The court’s unanimous ruling complicates the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to hold irresponsible prescribers criminally liable for fueling the opioid crisis. Previously, lower courts had not considered a prescriber’s intention. Until now, doctors on trial largely could not defend themselves by arguing they were acting in good faith when they wrote bad prescriptions. Now they can, attorneys say, although it is not necessarily a get-out-of-jail-free card.

“Essentially, the doctors were handcuffed,” said Zach Enlow, Onaro’s attorney. “Now they can take off their handcuffs. But it doesn’t mean they are going to win the fight.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Ruan v. United States, issued June 27, was overshadowed by the nation-shaking controversy ignited three days earlier, when the court erased federal abortion rights. But the lesser-known ruling is now quietly percolating through federal courthouses, where it has emboldened defendants in overprescribing cases and may have a chilling effect on future prosecutions of doctors under the Controlled Substances Act.

In the three months since it was issued, the Ruan decision has been invoked in at least 15 ongoing prosecutions across 10 states, according to a KHN review of federal court records. Doctors cited the decision in post-conviction appeals, motions for acquittals, new trials, plea reversals, and a failed attempt to exclude the testimony of a prescribing expert, arguing their opinion was now irrelevant. Other defendants have successfully petitioned to delay their cases so the Ruan decision could be folded into their arguments at upcoming trials or sentencing hearings.

David Rivera, a former Obama-era U.S. attorney who once led overprescribing prosecutions in Middle Tennessee, said he believes doctors have a “great chance” of overturning convictions if they were prohibited from arguing a good faith defense or a jury was instructed to ignore one.

Rivera said defendants who ran true pill mills would still be convicted, even if a second trial was ultimately required. But the Supreme Court has extended a “lifeline” to a narrow group of defendants who “dispensed with their heart, not their mind,” he said.

“What the Supreme Court is trying to do is divide between a bad doctor and a person who might have a license to practice medicine but is not acting as a doctor at all and is a drug dealer,” Rivera said. “A doctor who is acting under a sincerely held belief that he is doing the right thing, even if he may be horrible at his job and should not be trusted with human lives ― that’s still not criminal.”

The Ruan decision resulted from the appeals of two doctors, Xiulu Ruan and Shakeel Kahn, who were separately convicted of running pill mills in Alabama and Wyoming, respectively, then sentenced to 21 and 25 years in prison. In both cases, prosecutors relied on a common tactic to show the prescriptions were a crime: Expert witnesses reviewed the defendants’ prescriptions and testified that they were far out of line with what a reasonable doctor would do.

But in writing the opinion of the Supreme Court, then-Justice Stephen Breyer insisted the burden of proof should not be so simple to overcome, remanding both convictions back to the lower courts for reconsideration.

Because doctors are allowed and expected to distribute drugs, Breyer wrote, prosecutors must not only prove they wrote prescriptions with no medical purpose but also that they did so “knowingly or intentionally.” Otherwise, the courts risk punishing “conduct that lies close to, but on the permissible side of, the criminal line,” Breyer wrote.

To defense attorneys, the unanimous ruling sent an unambiguous message.

“This is a hyperpolarized time in America, and particularly on the court,” Enlow said. “And yet this was a 9-0 ruling saying that the mens rea ― or the mental state of the doctor ― it matters.”

Maybe nowhere was the Ruan decision more pressing than in the case of Dr. David Jankowski, a Michigan physician who was on trial when the burden of proof shifted beneath his feet.

Jankowski was convicted of federal drug and fraud crimes and faces 20 years in prison. In an announcement of the verdict, the DOJ said the doctor and his clinic supplied people with “no need for the drugs,” which were “sold on the streets to feed the addictions of opioid addicts.”

Defense attorney Anjali Prasad said the Ruan ruling dropped before jury deliberations in the case but after prosecutors spent weeks presenting the argument that Jankowski’s behavior was not that of a reasonable prescriber — a legal standard that on its own is no longer enough to convict.

Prasad cited the Ruan decision in a motion for a new trial, which was denied, and said she intends to use the decision as a basis for a forthcoming appeal. The attorney also said she is in discussion with two other clients about appealing their convictions with Ruan.

“My hope is that criminal defense attorneys like myself are more emboldened to take their cases to trial and that their clients are 100% ready to fight the feds, which is no easy task,” Prasad said. “We just duke it out in the courtroom. We can prevail that way.”

Some defendants are trying. So far, a few have scored small wins. And at least one suffered a crushing defeat.

In Tennessee, nurse practitioner Jeffrey Young, accused of trading opioids for sex and notoriety for a reality show pilot, successfully delayed his trial from May to November to account for the Ruan decision, arguing it would “drastically alter the landscape of the Government’s war on prescribers.”

Also in Tennessee, Samson Orusa, a doctor and pastor who last year was convicted of handing out opioid prescriptions without examining patients, filed a motion for a new trial based on the Ruan decision, then persuaded a reluctant judge to delay his sentencing for six months to consider it.

And in Ohio, Dr. Martin Escobar cited the Ruan ruling in an eleventh-hour effort to avoid prison.

Escobar in January pleaded guilty to 54 counts of distributing a controlled substance, including prescriptions that caused the deaths of two patients. After the Ruan decision, Escobar tried to withdraw his plea, saying he’d have gone to trial if he’d known prosecutors had to prove his intent.

One week later, on the day Escobar was set to be sentenced, a federal judge denied the motion.

His guilty plea remained.

Escobar got 25 years.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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At a Tennessee Crossroads, Two Pharmacies, a Monkey, and Millions of Pills

Prosecutors say opioid-seeking patients drove hours to get their prescriptions filled in Celina, Tennessee, where pharmacies ignored signs of substance misuse and paid cash — or “monkey bucks” — to keep customers coming back.

CELINA, Tenn. — It was about 1 a.m. on April 19, 2016, when a burglary alarm sounded at Dale Hollow Pharmacy in Celina, a tiny town in the rolling, wooded hills near the Kentucky border.

Two cops responded. As their flashlights bobbed in the darkness, shining through the pharmacy windows, they spotted a sign of a break-in: pill bottles scattered on the floor.

The cops called the co-owner, Thomas Weir, who arrived within minutes and let them in. But as quickly as their flashlights beamed behind the counter, Weir demanded the cops leave. He said he’d rather someone “steal everything” than let them finish their search, according to a police report and body camera footage from the scene.

“Get out of there right now!” Weir shouted, as if shooing off a mischievous dog. “Get out of there!”

The cops argued with Weir as he escorted them out. They left the pharmacy more suspicious than when they’d arrived, triggering a probe in a small town engulfed in one of the most outsize concentrations of opioids in a pill-ravaged nation.

Nearly six years later, federal prosecutors have unveiled a rare criminal case alleging that Celina pharmacy owners intentionally courted opioid seekers by filling dangerous prescriptions that would have been rejected elsewhere. The pharmacies are accused of giving cash handouts to keep customers coming back, and one allegedly distributed its own currency, “monkey bucks,” inspired by a pet monkey that was once a common sight behind the counter. Two pharmacists admitted in plea agreements they attracted large numbers of patients from “long distances” by ignoring red flags indicating pills were being misused or resold. In their wake, prosecutors say, these Celina pharmacies left a rash of addiction, overdoses, deaths, and millions in wasted tax dollars.

“I hate that this is what put us on the map,” said Tifinee Roach, 38, a lifelong Celina resident who works in a salon not far from the pharmacies and recounted years of unfamiliar cars and unfamiliar people filling the parking lots. “I hate that this is what we’re going to be known for.”

Celina, an old logging town of 1,900 people about two hours northeast of Nashville, was primed for this drug trade: In the shadow of a dying hospital, four pharmacies sat within 1,000 feet of each other, at the crux of two highways, dispensing millions of opioid pills. Before long, that intersection had single-handedly turned Tennessee’s Clay County into one of the nation’s pound-for-pound leaders of opioid distribution. In 2017, Celina pharmacies filled nearly two opioid prescriptions for every Clay County resident — more than three times the national rate — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Visitors once came to Celina to tour its historical courthouse or drop their lines for smallmouth bass in the famed fishing lake nearby. Now they came for pills.

Soon after Weir’s police encounter in 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration set its sights on his two Celina pharmacies, three doors apart — Dale Hollow Pharmacy and Xpress Pharmacy. Separately, investigators examined the clinic of Dr. Gilbert Ghearing, which sat directly between Dale Hollow and Xpress and leased office space to a third pharmacy in the same building, Anderson Hometown Pharmacy. Its owners and operators have not been charged with any crime.

In December, a federal judge unsealed indictments against Weir and the other owners of Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies, Charles “Bobby” Oakley and Pamela Spivey, alleging they profited from attracting and filling dangerous and unjustifiable opioid prescriptions. Charges were also filed against William Donaldson, the former pharmacist and owner of Dale Hollow, previously convicted of drug dealing, who allegedly recruited most of the customers for the scheme.

The pharmacists at Dale Hollow and Xpress, John Polston and Michael Griffith, pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy and health care fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with law enforcement against the other suspects.

Ghearing was indicted on drug distribution charges for allegedly writing unjustifiable opioid prescriptions in a separate case in 2019. He pleaded not guilty, and his case is expected to go to trial in September.

‘An American Tragedy’

The Celina indictment comes as pharmacies enter an era of new accountability for the opioid crisis. In November, a federal jury in Cleveland ruled pharmacies at CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart could be held financially responsible for fueling the opioid crisis by recklessly distributing massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties. The ruling — a first of its kind — is expected to reverberate through thousands of similar lawsuits filed nationwide.

Criminal prosecutions for such actions remain exceedingly rare. The Department of Justice in recent years increased prosecutions of doctors and pain clinic staffers who overprescribed opioids but files far fewer charges against pharmacists, and barely any against pharmacy owners, who are generally harder to hold directly responsible for prescriptions filled at their establishments.

In a review of about 1,000 news releases about legal enforcement actions taken by the Department of Health and Human Services since 2019, KHN identified fewer than 10 similar cases involving pharmacists or pharmacy owners being criminally charged for filling opioid prescriptions. Among those few similar cases, none involved allegations of so many opioids flowing readily through such a small place.

The Celina case is also the first time the Department of Justice sought a restraining order and preliminary injunction against pharmacies under the Controlled Substances Act, said David Boling, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee. DOJ used the civil filing to shut down Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies quickly in 2019, allowing prosecutors more time to build a criminal case against the pharmacy owners.

Former U.S. Attorney Don Cochran, who oversaw much of the investigation, said the crisis in Celina was so severe it warranted a swift and unique response.

Cochran said it once made sense for small pharmacies to be clustered in Celina, where a rural hospital served the surrounding area. But as the hospital shriveled toward closure, as have a dozen others in Tennessee, the competing pharmacies turned to opioids to sustain themselves and got hooked on the profits, he said.

“It’s an American tragedy, and I think the town was a victim in this,” Cochran said. “The salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar folks that lived there were victimized by these people in these pharmacies. I think they knew full well this was not a medical necessity. It was just a money-making cash machine for them.”

And much of that money came from taxpayers. In its court filings, DOJ argues the pharmacies sought out customers with Medicaid or Medicare coverage — or signed them up if they didn’t have it. To keep these customers coming back, the pharmacies covered their copays or paid cash kickbacks whenever they filled a prescription, prosecutors allege. The pharmacies collected more than $2.4 million from Medicare for opioids and other controlled substances from 2012 to 2018, according to the court filings.

Prosecutors say the pharmacies also paid kickbacks to retain profitable customers with non-opioid prescriptions. In one case, Dale Hollow gave $100 “payouts” to a patient whenever they filled his prescription for mysoline, an anti-seizure drug, then used those prescriptions to collect more than $237,000 from Medicare, according to Polston’s plea agreement.

Attorneys for Weir, Oakley, Donaldson, Spivey, Polston, and Griffith either declined to comment for this article or did not respond to requests for comment.

Ronald Chapman, an attorney for Ghearing, defended the doctor’s prescriptions, saying he’d done “the best he [could] with what was available” in a rural setting with no resources or expertise in pain management.

Chapman added that, while he does not represent the other Celina suspects, he had a theory as to why they drew the attention of federal law enforcement. As large corporate pharmacies made agreements with the federal government to be more stringent about opioid prescriptions, they filled fewer of them. Customers then turned to smaller pharmacies in rural areas to get their drugs, he said.

“I’m not sure if that’s what happened in this case, but I’ve seen it happen in many small towns in America. The only CVS down the street, or the only Rite Aid down the street, is cutting off every provider who prescribes opioids, leaving it to smaller pharmacies to do the work,” Chapman said.

Donaldson, reached briefly at his home in Celina on March 9, insisted the allegations levied against Dale Hollow and Xpress could apply to many pharmacies in the region.

“It wasn’t just them,” Donaldson said.

The Monkey and the Monkey Bucks

Long before it was called Dale Hollow Pharmacy, the blue-and-white building that moved millions of pills through Celina was Donaldson Pharmacy, and Donaldson was behind the counter doling out pills.

Donaldson owned and operated the pharmacy for decades as the eccentric son of one of the most prominent families in Celina, where a street, a park, and many businesses bear his surname. Even now, despite Donaldson’s prior conviction for opioid crimes and his new indictment, an advertisement for “Donaldson Pharmacy” hangs at the entrance of a nearby high school.

“Bill has always had a heart of gold, and he would help anyone he could. I just think he let that, well …” said Pam Goad, a neighbor, trailing off. “He’s always had a heart of gold.”

According to interviews with about 20 Celina residents, including Clay County Sheriff Brandon Boone, Donaldson is also known to keep a menagerie of exotic animals, at one point including at least two giraffes, and a monkey companion, “Carlos,” whom he dressed in clothing.

The monkey — a mainstay at Donaldson Pharmacy for years — both attracted and deterred customers. Linda Nelson, who owns a nearby business, said Carlos once escaped the pharmacy and, during a scrap with a neighbor’s dogs, tore down her mailbox by snapping its wooden post in half.

But the monkey wasn’t the only reason Donaldson Pharmacy stood out.

According to a DEA opioid database published by The Washington Post, Donaldson Pharmacy distributed nearly 3 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills from 2006 to 2014, making it the nation’s 20th-highest per capita distributor during that period. It retained its ranking even though the pharmacy closed in 2011, when Donaldson was indicted for dispensing hydrocodone without a valid prescription.

Donaldson confessed to drug distribution and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. The pharmacy’s name was changed to Dale Hollow and ended up with Donaldson’s brother-in-law, Oakley. In 2014, Oakley sold 51% of the business to Weir, who also bought a majority stake of Xpress Pharmacy, three doors away, according to the DOJ’s civil complaint.

Under Weir’s leadership, these two pharmacies became an opioid hub with few equals, prosecutors say. From 2015 to 2018, Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies were the fourth-and 11th-highest per capita opioid purchasers in the nation, according to the DOJ, citing internal DEA data.

Many of these prescriptions were for Subutex, an opioid that can be used to treat addiction but is itself prone to abuse. Unless the patient is pregnant or nursing or has a documented allergy, Tennessee law requires doctors instead to prescribe Suboxone, an alternative that is much harder to abuse.

But at the Celina pharmacies, prescriptions for Subutex outnumbered those for Suboxone by at least 4-to-1, prosecutors say. In their plea agreements, pharmacists from Dale Hollow and Xpress described stores that thrived on the trade in Subutex, and said Weir set “mandates” for how many Subutex prescriptions to fill and instructed them to “never run out.”

Griffith, the head pharmacist at Xpress, said the pharmacy in 2015 created flyers specifically advertising Subutex, then delivered them on trays of cookies to practices throughout Tennessee, including some hours away. In the following two years, the amount of Subutex dispensed by Xpress increased by about eightyfold, according to his plea agreement.

Dale Hollow didn’t need flyers or cookies. It had Donaldson.

After getting out of prison in 2014, Donaldson was hired by the pharmacy he once owned, where he “recruited and controlled” about 50% to 90% of customers, according to the indictment filed against him. The pharmacy also enticed customers by distributing a Monopoly-like currency called “monkey bucks” — an apparent callback to Carlos — that could be spent at the pharmacy like cash, the indictment states.

Prosecutors also allege that, from a desk inside Dale Hollow, Donaldson would sign customers up for Medicare or Medicaid, then use a vehicle provided by the pharmacy to drive them to a doctor’s office to get opioid prescriptions, then back to Dale Hollow where he’d offer to cover their copays himself if they kept their business at the pharmacy. Sometimes, he would text the Dale Hollow pharmacist with instructions to fill specific prescriptions, or just to fill more of them, according to federal court records.

“Y’all have got to get your numbers up. Fill fill,” Donaldson texted Polston in 2018, according to his plea agreement.

By then, however, all those prescriptions had drawn unwanted attention.

In August 2018, Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies were raided by DEA agents, who brought with them Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera and a television crew. Six months later, DOJ filed its civil complaint, persuading a federal judge to immediately close both pharmacies.

Today, Dale Hollow Pharmacy sits shuttered, as it has been for the past three years, and a paper sign taped to the door says animals are not allowed inside by order of the DEA. The building that was once Xpress Pharmacy reopened this year as an unrelated pharmacy with a fresh coat of paint. Ghearing’s clinic and Anderson Hometown Pharmacy are closed.

Most of Celina’s opioid prescriptions are gone, too. According to the latest available CDC data, Clay County reported about 32 opioid prescriptions per 100 residents in 2020 — one-sixth the rate of 2017’s.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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