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Alsip woman sentenced to one year for fraudulently writing 85 opioid prescriptions

By FOX 32 Digital Staff
Updated  January 18, 2022 2:30pm CST
Alsip
FOX 32 Chicago

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ALSIP, Ill. - An administrative assistant at a Westmont medical practice was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for fraudulently writing opioid prescriptions.

Amanda Biesiada, 39, of Alsip, pleaded guilty last year to one count of knowingly and intentionally dispensing controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.

Biesiada, who was not a licensed physician and could not lawfully prescribe medications without the direction and approval of licensed doctors, worked as an administrative assistant at Hinsdale Orthopaedics.

From 2017 to 2019, prosecutors said Biesiada fraudulently wrote 85 prescriptions to an acquaintance for hydrocodone, oxycodone and other controlled substances.

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Biesiada wrote the prescriptions on behalf of six Hinsdale Orthopaedics health care providers, who did not direct or approve the prescriptions.

Biesiada then tried to conceal the fraudulent prescriptions by marking them as having been "filed in error" in the Hindsale Orthopaedics prescription system.  

"The opioid epidemic has devastated the lives of countless individuals through addiction and overdose," Assistant U.S. Attorney G. David Rojas argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.  "Defendant contributed to this national crisis by helping make opiates available to an individual who otherwise would not and should not have had access to them."