ROCHESTER, N.Y. - U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Dr. Clifford Jacobson, M.D., 68, of Rochester, NY, who was convicted of illegally distributing a controlled substance, was sentenced to one year probation to include four months of home confinement by U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa. Jacobson was also required to surrender his license to practice medicine and pay to $75,000 in financial penalties, including to Medicaid and the federal government.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Field, who is handling the case, stated that Dr. Jacobson was a practicing psychiatrist. From 2014 to 2017, he sold prescriptions for Schedule IV controlled substances, including clonazepam, to undercover agents and patients who had no medical necessity for the drug but who sought to use it recreationally. The defendant charged his patients $120 for each illegal prescription.
The sentencing is the result of an investigation by Special Agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge James J. Hunt, New York Field Division, and investigators of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, acting under the direction of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
