The former owner of two Kentucky pain clinics that illegally dispensed prescription drugs to thousands of patients was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Lexington.
U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell ordered Ernest William Singleton to serve 20 years in prison, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Singleton and his corporations, which owned Central Kentucky Bariatric and Pain Management, Central Kentucky Family Pharmacy of Georgetown, and the Grant County Wellness Center in Dry Ridge, were convicted by a federal jury last summer.
According to evidence presented at trial, doctors at the clinics prescribed large quantities of Oxycodone and Diazepam. Singleton, who oversaw the daily operations of the clinics, influenced doctors to overprescribe drugs to patients, and pressured them to see as many patients as possible. Witnesses testified that, at Singleton’s direction, one of the doctors saw more than 90 patients in a day and another doctor visited with some patients for as little as three minutes before prescribing medication.
The clinics operated on a cash-only basis and patients paid at least $250 per visit. Investigators estimate that approximately 5,000 patients visited the clinics during the course of the conspiracy from 2010 to 2013.