Felix Shepard, Jr. Admits Illegally Distributing Oxycodone
Abingdon, VIRGINIA - A Norton, Virginia physician who specialized in urology pled guilty yesterday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Abingdon to a federal drug distribution charge, Acting United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring and Karl C. Colder, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA’s Washington Field Office announced.
Felix Eugene Shepard, Jr., 56, pled guilty yesterday to one count of distributing oxycodone, a schedule II controlled substance. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 1, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. in U.S. District Court in Big Stone Gap.
According to evidence presented to the court at yesterday’s guilty plea by Special Assistant United States Attorney Suzanne Kerney-Quillen, Shepard admitted to writing 47 prescriptions for oxycodone to a patient he was involved in a sexual relationship with. Shepard admitted to the Virginia Board of Medicine that the narcotic prescriptions were written to the patient outside of a bona fide doctor-patient relationship. Shepard continuously prescribed narcotic medications to the patient over an extended period without performing adequate physical examinations, evaluations, or diagnostic testing, for conditions that were outside the scope of his urological practice. In a statement Shepard made to an investigator from the Virginia Board of Medicine, he expressed concern regarding the amount of oxycodone he had prescribed the patient and said the amounts were indicative of addiction. However, Shepard took no action to address the patient’s possible addiction and/or diversion of the oxycodone he prescribed the patient. Shepard prescribed the patient over 2,000 dose units of oxycodone, yet the patient’s file contained few notes or records concerning treatment or the reason the prescriptions were written.
The investigation of the case was conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration-Tactical Diversion Squad. Special Assistant United States Attorney Suzanne Kerney-Quillen, a Virginia Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Attorney General’s Major Crimes and Emerging Threats Section, prosecuted the case for the United States.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
