Dr. Richard Johns of Practice Management Services Inc. of Little Rock.
Richard Johns, the internist who pleaded guilty to selling oxycodone prescriptions, first appeared in Arkansas Business in September 2012 for a completely different reason:
He was being investigated by the Little Rock Police Department after being accused of sexual misconduct by at least two women.
He was not charged with any crime as a result of that investigation, and a long-running civil case was dismissed by a nurse who accused him of sexual harassment and retaliation.
The nurse said Johns made offensive comments during the few months she worked for him in 2007. After she complained, he reported to the Arkansas State Board of Nursing that she wrote prescriptions under his name. The nurse denied the accusation but accepted a one-year probation on her nursing license.
Another nurse who worked for Johns complained to the Arkansas State Medical Board that he shared her personal medical records with her ex-husband. After she filed that complaint in 2003, Johns reported her to the Board of Nursing for inappropriate drug use. She too was disciplined while the Medical Board took no action against Johns.
In July 2010, a patient complained of increasingly disturbing behavior that allegedly culminated with Johns kissing her breast.
When the Medical Board declined to act, the patient complained to the LRPD. That investigation stalled until new information led to the probe that Arkansas Business reported in 2012. The board took no action until June 2015, after Johns was charged with selling prescriptions.
In August 2015, a patient’s son filed a complaint that combined sexual impropriety and painkillers. He said Johns gave his mother “what seemed like an unlimited supply” of addictive narcotics. The doctor-patient relationship lasted more than a decade, even though his mother said after her first visit that Johns had asked to see her breasts.
The man said his mother died in January 2015, a few days after she attempted suicide by overdosing on pills. The board took no action while Johns’ criminal charges were pending.
In November 2015, six months after his arrest, Johns’ lawyer asked the Medical Board to reinstate his license, albeit without authority to prescribe painkillers. The board didn’t respond.
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