Richard Johns’ wife, children and priest watched Thursday as he tearfully pleaded guilty to taking money in exchange for prescribing tens of thousands of painkiller tablets to middlemen who federal prosecutors said resold them.
Johns, 51, was taken into custody immediately after pleading guilty to a single count of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone. The terms of the plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Little Rock suggest a guideline sentence of nine to 12 years in federal prison, where parole is not an option.
The plea agreement did not require Johns to accept responsibility for the death of a young Cabot man, whose overdose prompted the investigation that snared Johns and 17 co-defendants.
Johns will be sentenced at a later date, and U.S. District Judge Brian Miller was informed that the exact amount of proceeds from the “pill mill” that Johns will forfeit will be litigated. The government has agreed not to try to seize the Johns family home, but will keep $155,000 already seized and a 2006 Ford F150 that was used in the conspiracy.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anne Gardner and John Ray White asked Judge Miller to dismiss the original seven-count indictment that was issued against Johns in September 2015, after federal prosecutors took over a case originally filed in Lonoke County Circuit Court in April of that year. Johns, the only prescribing physician in the conspiracy, was the seventh of the 18 to enter a guilty plea. Six others have already pleaded guilty and plea hearings for eight more are scheduled this month.
Johns’ voice broke repeatedly as he answered questions from Judge Miller, who explained at lengths the rights Johns was giving up by pleading guilty. Johns, seated between defense attorneys Paul James and Bud Cummins, turned several times to mouth “I love you” to his wife, Kellie, and their five children. Msgr. Francis I. Malone, pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church in Little Rock, also attended.
According to the narrative of Johns’ crimes read by Gardner, Johns had been accepting payment from two of his co-defendants, David Scroggins and Aaron Cochran, in exchange for prescriptions of oxycodone written in the names of individuals provided by Scroggins and Cochran. In some cases, he never met the people to whom he wrote the prescriptions, Gardner said, and the prescriptions were filled and the pills resold.
The conspiracy with Cochran began in 2011, Gardner said, but the defense said it didn’t begin until the last half of 2012. Johns acknowledged selling prescriptions to Scroggins starting in July 2014, four months before the death of Curtis Norris, 25, at Scroggins’ house just outside the Cabot city limits.
The plea agreement holds Johns responsible for only the fraudulent prescriptions he wrote between January 2014 and May 2015, which the parties agreed was approximately 39,000 30mg oxycodone pills.
Sign up for Daily E-news
