Florida Doctor Sentenced Four Years for Pill Conspiracy

LEXINGTON—A Florida doctor who previously admitted in federal court that he illegally prescribed thousands of pain pills to Kentuckians was sentenced to 48 months in prison today and three years of supervised release.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove sentenced Michael Shook, 52, to conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone and Methadone before U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove.

Shook acknowledged that he unlawfully prescribed approximately 25,000 pain pills to Eastern Kentuckians who traveled to see him at Lauderhill Medical Clinic located in Oakland Park, Fla.

According to the plea agreement, Shook wrote prescriptions for numerous Kentuckians who were arrested in October of 2009 as part of the largest drug roundup in Kentucky’s history that included more than 500 people.

Court documents state that by late 2008 and early 2009, 90 percent of the clinic’s patients were from Kentucky. During some of the visits by Kentucky patients, Shook performed a limited examinations if any at all before writing the prescription. All the Kentuckians paid for their examination in cash. After Shook wrote the prescriptions, the patients filled them at the clinic’s in house pharmacy.

Shook was the only doctor employed by the clinic. He was paid as much as $6,000 per week and split all the profits with two men identified in the plea agreement. These individuals provided the funds to open the clinic and filled the prescriptions written by Shook.

The FBI has seized more than $200,000 from the clinic representing the profits gained from the conspiracy.

Shook is the second Florida doctor to enter into a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Kentucky for conspiring with Kentuckians to illegally distribute pills. In November 2008, Roger Browne, who practiced medicine in Coral Springs, Fla., pleaded guilty to a conspiracy that involved nine defendants from Eastern Kentucky.

Also, former doctors Lloyd Naramore in Ohio and Randy Weiss in Philadelphia were previously convicted for pill conspiracies with Eastern Kentuckians. Court documents show that some of the patients that visited Shook also received prescriptions from Weiss and Naramore.

Kerry B.Harvey, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Elizabeth A. Fries, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Rodney C. Brewer, Kentucky State Police Commissioner, and Frank Rapier, director of Appalachian HIDTA, jointly made the announcement after the sentence.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI in Kentucky and Miami, DEA in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, Kentucky State Police, and Appalachian HIDTA. The U.S. Attorney’s Office was represented in the case by Assistant United States Attorney Roger West.