McCracken Co. Physician Pleads Guilty Of Fraudulent Possession Of A Controlled Substance, Wire Fraud And Making False Statements Related To Health Care Matters

NEWS RELEASE

PADUCAH, Ky. – A McCracken County, Kentucky, physician plead guilty on Thursday, in United States District Court, before Senior District Judge Thomas B. Russell, to fraudulent possession of a controlled substance, wire fraud and making false statements related to health care matters, announced United States Attorney John E. Kuhn, Jr.

Sean P. McDonald, 46, admitted to devising a scheme to obtain prescription pain medication, while a treating physician at two Paducah, Kentucky, hospitals by falsely misrepresenting that he was removing medications for hospitalized patients, falsely possessing the controlled substances, and then falsely causing a request for payment to be sent from the two Paducah hospitals to the insurance carriers of the patients.

Specifically, according to the twelve-count federal Information, McDonald defrauded Lourdes Hospital and Western Baptist Hospital, by means of wire communication. From February 2009, through November 2010, McDonald caused a request for payment to be sent from Western Baptist Hospital and/or Lourdes Hospital, both located in Paducah, Kentucky, to patient’s insurance carriers.

During the same time period, McDonald admitted to making false and fraudulent statements to insurance carriers indicating that he had provided medication to patients when he had not.

Further, McDonald, as a prescribing physician with a DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) registration number to issue prescriptions, wrote prescriptions for Dilauded, a Schedule II controlled substance, in violation of his DEA registration, to patients, when in fact he never provided the controlled substances to the patient.

If convicted at trial, McDonald would have faced a combined maximum term of imprisonment of 113 years, a combined maximum fine of $3,000,000 and a three year term of supervised release. Sentencing before Senior Judge Russell is September 26, 2016, in Paducah.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Lettricea Jefferson-Webb and Seth Hancock and is being investigated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control Unit of the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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