CARMEL, Ind. (AP) — Four doctors who supposedly ran a system
of clinics aimed at helping addicts kick painkillers were illegally
selling a drug that’s supposed to aid in rehabilitation, authorities
said Friday.
Federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents and
local police officers raided clinics Friday morning in Carmel,
Noblesville, Muncie, Kokomo and Centerville following an undercover
operation that began in 2011.
Dr. Larry Ley, 68, of Noblesville,
was being held on $1 million bond on drug-dealing charges in Hamilton
County Jail north of Indianapolis. A jail officer did not know if Ley,
who prosecutors say was the leader of the operation, had an attorney. A
dozen additional suspects, including three other doctors, were either
under arrest or being sought by police.
"This was exploiting some
people who were really in need for profit," said Dennis Wichern,
assistant special agent in charge at the DEA’s Indianapolis office.
The
probable cause affidavit said that patients would go to clinics
operated by organizations called the Drug and Opiate Recovery Network or
Living Life Clean and pay cash for prescriptions of Suboxone, a drug
that can be used to treat addictions to opioid painkillers or heroin.
The clinics took cash and did not accept insurance.
Carmel police
Maj. Aaron Dietz said at a news conference Friday that patients going to
the Carmel clinic who said they were seeking help for an addiction
could obtain a Suboxone prescription after paying $300 cash. Those
patients could later get additional prescriptions by paying $120 to $160
cash fees to a receptionist or other employee "virtually never having
contact with Dr. Ley or any other doctor," Dietz said.
Dietz said the patients didn’t undergo any medical or mental exams and weren’t asked to provide medical
histories.
Ley
sometimes delivered a 15-minute lecture, but there were no drug
screenings, the affidavit said. He sometimes met with patients in the
park, Dietz said, noting, "One of the 27 undercover visits took only 39
seconds, while others lasted only a few minutes."
Office employees
handed out pre-signed prescriptions, the affidavit alleged. In 2013,
Ley allegedly wrote nearly 8,500 prescriptions, generating an income of
$718,000, the affidavit said.
One patient who visited a clinic
referred to it on an online medical site as a "legal drug-pushing
operation," the affidavit said.
Dietz said Ley and the other
doctors contributed to the area’s prescription drug abuse troubles by
misusing their medical licenses "for the sole means to make money."
Dietz said the operation attracted hundreds of people seeking the prescriptions.
"We had clients coming from all over the state of Indiana to these clinics," he said.