While members of the news media and commentators discuss the untimely death of music superstar Whitney Houston, which may be linked to prescription drugs, a physician was being sentenced to hard time for prescribing controlled substances to patients who had no medical need for the drugs.
A federal jury convicted the 60-year old Dr, Volkman on May 10, 2011 of 18 crimes including four counts of illegal drug distribution that resulted in death. He received a life sentence on each of those counts.
According to court documents, the sentences on 13 other counts range from 10 to 20 years and were ordered to be served concurrently. He was sentenced to an additional five years in prison to be served consecutively for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Volkman was also ordered to forfeit $1.2 million, the proceeds from his illegal activity.
The prosecution called dozens of witnesses during the eight-week trial including pharmacists who refused to fill prescriptions from Volkman, law enforcement agents and officers who investigated the deaths, Volkman’s employees, individuals who received pills from Volkman, medical experts and family members of the victims.
Evidence presented during the trial showed that Volkman prescribed and dispensed millions of dosages of various drugs including diazepam, hydrocodone, oxycodone, alprazolam, and carisoprodol.
“Volkman was the physician at the center of a criminal scheme to distribute millions of controlled substances to hundreds of individuals in exchange for cash—a scheme that brought addiction, diversion, and death to southeastern Ohio and beyond,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tim Oakley and Adam Wright wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court.
“During the course of this conspiracy, Volkman was the top physician purchaser of oxycodone in the country,” they concluded.
Dr. Volkman made weekly trips between Chicago and three locations in Portsmouth, Ohio and one location in Chillicothe, Ohio before task force investigators led by Drug Enforcement Administration Diversion investigators shut him down in 2006.
"Patients" paid between $125 and $200 cash per office visit. After a brief visit with him, they received a prescription for pain medicine. The “clinics” opened their own dispensary in 2003 after local pharmacies refused to honor prescriptions he wrote.
In addition, Volkman directed his "customers" to the East Main Pharmacy in Columbus, Ohio which filled close to 6,000 prescriptions for high doses of the opiate painkiller oxycodone and other drugs between September 2005 and February 2006.
Pharmacy owner Harold Eugene Fletcher pleaded guilty in January 2011 to illegal distribution of oxycodone and committing financial and tax crimes. Fletcher was sentenced on January 9, 2012 to 27 months in prison.
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