A Texarkana physician was sentenced Monday to 87 months in federal prison for overprescribing opioids and other controlled substances.
Dr. Lonnie Parker also will serve three years of supervised release for two counts of distribution of a schedule controlled substance without an effective prescription. The 59-year-old Parker was convicted by a federal jury in October 2022.
Parker also was sentenced to a year in prison followed by one year of supervised release on two other counts of distribution of a controlled substance without an effective prescription, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Arkansas. The sentences will run at the same time.
Agents opened an investigation into Parker in 2018, “after receiving complaints from local law enforcement about a suspected pill mill and possible overdose death of a patient,” the news release said.
Investigators found that Parker prescribed controlled substances, to include opiates, benzodiazepines and promethazine with codeine cough syrup “with unusual frequency and in unusually large quantities in the Texarkana area,” the release said.
In the two-year period examined, Parker prescribed about 1.2 million dosage units of opiates, including oxycodone and hydrocodone, to about 1,500 patients, which is about 850 dosage units per patient, the news release said.
Parker also prescribed about 16 gallons of promethazine with codeine cough syrup to about 29 patients during the same time period. These prescriptions included several for combinations of narcotics and sedatives to high diversion-risk patients.
Parker had disputed the charges.
“I have done nothing but provide quality medical care to my patients,” Parker told Arkansas Business in 2020.
Parker was sentenced by Judge Susan O. Hickey. He faced up to 20 years in prison.
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