Dallas doctor guilty of dealing countless painkillers to the homeless in 'pill mill'

[TexasTowelie]

A Dallas doctor faces up to 20 years in prison after a federal jury convicted him Friday in a pill-mill scheme for illegally prescribing nearly a million doses of painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs.

Carlos Luis Venegas was convicted of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance before U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey in Dallas.

Venegas, 62, was accused of dispensing drugs with "no legitimate medical purpose," said Erin Nealy Cox, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

According to trial evidence, Venegas acted as the supervising physician for a series of sham medical clinics that were fronts for the distribution of hydrocodone and alprazolam.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2019/02/02/dallas-doctor-convicted-scheme-provide-painkiller-prescriptions-fake-illnesses

[Paladin]

1. Sounds like a familiar pattern, here.

Quite often, the dope-prescribing doctors in a community are elderly and facing financial pressure, due to the shrinking size of their practices and impending retirements. Some time, the biggest Rx-abusing physicians are the most respected---I once lived in a town where the leading abuser had an elementary school named in his honor.

If you want to confirm any of the foregoing, just talk to your pharmacist---they generally know exactly who the abusing doctors are in their area, and often will refuse to fill painkiller/diet pill prescriptions from them.