GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - A Georgia doctor accused of running a roving pain management clinic in South Mississippi has been fined $15,000 and sentenced to prison for five years.
The Sun Herald reports (https://bit.ly/1P7kK2F) Dr. Sanjay Sinha, 51, of Woodstock, Georgia, also will have five years of probation. He can no longer prescribe medicine.
U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden gave Sinha the maximum prison term Wednesday for distributing and dispensing a controlled substance outside the scope of professional practice.
Ozerden sentenced him after hearing two days of legal arguments and testimony.
Sinha and three co-defendants from South Mississippi were arrested in March 2014 through a state and federal investigation named Operation Double Down Doc. Sinha was accused of operating a pill ring to recoup his gambling losses and using casino workers to build his clientele.
He wrote prescriptions for cash, gave “patients” little or no physical exams and didn’t check to see if they were receiving the same prescriptions from other doctors, according to testimony.
The drugs included hydrocodone, oxycodone, alprazolam and clonazepam.
Sinha ultimately was charged a third time in a 40-count indictment involving prescriptions written over six years, from as early as 2008.
His attorneys this week objected to information used to help determine his punishment. Christopher Smith and Morgan Holder argued that Sinha’s co-defendants recruited him and convinced him to write illegal prescriptions. They said Sinha was less culpable and deserved a lesser sentence than recommended.
U.S. Attorney John Meynardie argued that Sinha had written illegal prescriptions for more than 180 patients and only a small portion of them were recruited by his co-defendants.
His co-defendants “were all fueled by their addiction, an addiction that in some cases was caused in the first place by Dr. Sinha,” Meynardie said in a written motion.
“Dr. Sinha was fueled by greed and the need to pay mounting gambling troubles,” Meynardie said.
Sinha had practiced at a Jesup, Georgia, clinic but was fired, Meynardie said. Two of his former co-workers provided letters that raised concerns about his patient care and ethics, Meynardie said.
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