Former Hampton doctor sentenced to home detention, probation for distributing painkillers

A former doctor from Hampton who pleaded guilty in July to health care fraud and money laundering for illegally writing prescriptions for painkillers has been sentenced to home detention and probation.

Andrzej Kazimierz Zielke, 66, of Hampton, who was initially arrested in 2017, operated Medical Frontiers LLC, a pain management practice in Gibsonia, whose website said: “At Medical Frontiers, we refused to accept the notion that there is nothing we can do for (patients suffering from chronic pain) and the only solution are painkillers.”

Federal prosecutors said Zielke knowingly dispensed and distributed the prescription narcotics oxycodone, methadone, hydrocodone and oxymorphone to four patients “outside the course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.”

According to the criminal complaint in the case, a confidential informant told investigators in November 2014 that Zielke was known in the McKeesport area as a doctor who would write oxycodone prescriptions. Then, in 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Center for Program Integrity reported that three of Zielke’s patients died from drug overdoses.

The investigation revealed that patients paid $90 or $250 per visit, the complaint said, and they reported Zielke’s office was often packed with people seeking drugs. One patient described the operation as a “pill mill.”

A former employee said that Zielke took all the money collected in his practice home with him at the end of each day, as well as a daily log sheet, the complaint said.

Senior U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer on Monday sentenced Zielke to one day of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release, which includes 15 months home confinement and 300 hours of community service.

Prosecutes said Zielke committed health care fraud by filing fraudulent claims for payment from Medicaid to cover the costs of the unlawfully prescribed drugs.

Zielke violated federal money-laundering laws when he wired about $150,000 in proceeds from his illegal drug distribution to buy silver and collectible coins from Kitco Metals Inc. in Canada.

The sentence also orders Zielke to forfeit more than $75,000 in cash and the gold coins and bullion he bought with money earned through his illegal activities.

Zielke received his medical license in Pennsylvania in 1995. According to records with the Pennsylvania Department of State, he was suspended from practice in 2017 when he was charged.