Ohio doctor gets 7 years in prison for violating Controlled Substances Act
A physician in Ohio was sentenced to seven years in prison for doling out opioids from his pain management clinic.
In a statement released last week, the Department of Justice (DoJ) said Thomas Romando, MD, 74, ran his offices in Martins Ferry, Ohio. But, his patients would travel long distances—sometimes hundreds of miles—to obtain unlawful and unnecessary prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances.
Between October 2014 and September 2019, Romano allegedly gave nine patients more than 137,000 opioids, muscle relaxers and benzodiazepines. These were sometimes at dangerously high doses that could threaten the life of the patients, the DoJ said.
According to prosecutors, Romano charged $750 for an initial visit to his clinic, then $120 for subsequent monthly visits, and acted as a continuous source for drugs for potentially addicted patients.
He was convicted in September on 24 counts of violating the Controlled Substances Act. Each charge carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
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