Chicago medical practice manager sentenced for writing fake opioid prescriptions, selling drugs for profit

CHICAGO - An office manager for a Chicago medical practice has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to fraudulently writing opioid prescriptions for non-medical reasons.

Rosemary Mays, 47, of South Holland, was sentenced to a year in federal prison for dispensing hydrocodone, oxycodone, and other controlled substances outside the scope of practice, the U.S. attorney’s office of the Northern District of Illinois said in a statement.

Mays allegedly conspired with another person to prescribe opioids using a prescription pad belonging to a doctor at the South Side Chicago practice between 2009 and 2016, according to prosecutors.

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"Defendant was the key player in a multi-year criminal conspiracy," Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard M. Rothblatt argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.

Prosecutors said Mays issued over 3,000 fraudulent prescriptions in her own name and the names of dozens of unsuspecting friends and family members who had not been treated by the doctor and had no legitimate medical need for the controlled substances, prosecutors said.

Mays and her co-conspirator then allegedly forced their friends and family members to fill the fake prescriptions at Chicago area pharmacies and then provide the opioids to them, prosecutors said. Some of the opioids were then sold throughout the Chicago area for a profit.

To hide the scheme, prosecutors said Mays created fake patient profiles to make it look like the doctor had treated and prescribed the opioids to the individuals.

"Defendant abused the trust of a doctor with whom she worked to write thousands of fraudulent prescriptions for dangerous and addictive opioids," Rothblatt said in the memorandum.

Mays pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to dispense and distribute a controlled substance outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose or practitioner license, prosecutors said.

She was was sentenced to a year-and-a-day in federal prison on Wednesday by Judge Mary M. Rowland.