A judge sentenced a California doctor to more than 11 years behind bars for running a “pill mill” in Western Pennsylvania through which he illegally prescribed fentanyl and opioid painkillers for cash, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Dr. Paul Michael Hoover, 59, formerly of Novato, Calif., also must pay the federal government nearly $1.6 million for his three-year scheme that involved laundering money and cheating the health care and Social Security systems, U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady said.
Special Agent in Charge Maureen R. Dixon of Human Health Services said the case exemplifies that investigators will seek maximum prosecution of any medical professionals caught breaking the law.
“We will continue to collaborate with our law enforcement partners to bring criminals — including corrupt physicians — to justice,” Dixon said.
U.S. District Chief Judge Mark R. Hornak sentenced Hoover to 11 years and four months in prison. He must pay the federal government $407,000 and forfeit $1.2 million in cash, gold, silver and real estate.
“Dr. Hoover was a criminal in a lab coat who contributed to the drug problem in the Pittsburgh area,” Paris S. Pratt, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Paris S. Pratt of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Pittsburgh District Office said in a statement. “Doctors that seek to betray their professional oath and engage in this type of illegal activity will be subject to both criminal charges and significant civil penalties.”
The related case against Hoover’s assistant, Marci Ramsier Arthurs, also a former resident of Novato, Calif., is pending.
The pair was charged last year with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, methadone and oxycodone. Fentanyl, in particular, is a synthetic opioid painkiller that can be 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin; as little as 2 or 3 nanograms per milliliter of blood can be deadly.
Between March 2015 and June of last year, Hoover traveled from California to Pittsburgh every three months or so to run a two-day operation in Coraopolis writing illegal prescriptions, prosecutors said.
Buyers then sent him money and he mailed them the drugs, prosecutors said.
Hoover further defrauded the government by falsely claiming disability and receiving Social Security benefits on the premise that he could not work — while using “his status as a physician to earn money by illegally prescribing oxycodone,” Brady said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cindy K. Chung and Rachael L. Mamula prosecuted the case with help from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service, state Attorney General, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Veterans Affairs, Food and Drug Administration and Pennsylvania Bureau of Licensing.
