William S. Thompson U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia
After a four-day trial, a federal jury in Charleston, West Virginia, found Brian McDevitt, D.O., guilty of distributing controlled substances outside the scope of professional practice. McDevitt, aged 61 and based in Chapmanville, was convicted on four counts related to prescriptions he wrote for hydrocodone and alprazolam in 2022 and 2024. The jury also ruled that McDevitt must forfeit his medical license and the Chapmanville Medical Clinic.
McDevitt is set to be sentenced on May 22, 2025. He faces a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison. This is not McDevitt's first conviction; he pleaded guilty in January 2010 to conspiracy charges involving the misuse of his federal registration number for distributing phentermine. For these offenses, he was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and fined $60,000.
United States Attorney Will Thompson commented on the case: “Dr. McDevitt was one of the original drug dealers in a lab coat, and did not learn his lesson from his prior convictions and prison sentence.” He added that McDevitt continued to violate ethical duties as a physician "to enrich himself at the expense of vulnerable West Virginians."
The investigation leading to McDevitt's conviction was conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) alongside the U.S. Route 119 Drug Task Force. Jim Scott, Special Agent in Charge of DEA’s Louisville Division stated: “Doctors are expected to follow their oath to first do no harm; when they intentionally prescribe controlled substances...they reduce themselves to drug dealers in lab coats.”
United States District Judge Thomas E. Johnston presided over the trial with Assistant United States Attorneys Owen Reynolds and Andrew J. Tessman prosecuting.
For further details or related court documents, interested parties can refer to PACER using Case No. 2:24-cr-96.
