U.S. District Judge Ronnie L. White on Wednesday sentenced an osteopathic physician from Collinsville, Illinois to a year in prison for illegally prescribing an anti-anxiety drug.
Matthew Steven Miller, 43, wrote prescriptions for the drug Xanax for six people who were not his patients between 2016 and 2018. Miller had not examined them, knew they didn’t have a legitimate medical need for the drug, and knew the drug would be sold or abused, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dorothy McMurtry wrote in a sentencing memorandum. Miller also did not document the prescriptions and didn’t determine if the Xanax was contraindicated due to existing medical conditions or possible adverse interactions with other medications.
Miller wrote the prescriptions despite not being licensed by Missouri’s Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and lacked a Drug Enforcement Administration registration number necessary to do so.
Miller pleaded guilty in June to one count of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and one count of making a false statement concerning a health care matter.
He was taken into custody immediately after Wednesday’s hearing.
The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of the Inspector General, and the South Central Drug Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dorothy McMurtry is prosecuting the case.
