(Martinsville, VA) – US Attorney Thomas Cullen announced the conviction of a Martinsville based doctor on over 800 federal drug charges Thursday. It took a jury seven hours to return the verdict in a trial that had lasted nine days. 36-year-old Joel Smithers was convicted on one count of maintaining a place for the purpose of illegally distributing controlled substances, one count of possession with the intent to distribute controlled substances, and 859 counts of illegally prescribing Schedule II controlled substances.
“This defendant not only violated his Hippocratic Oath to his patients, but he perpetuated, on a massive scale, the vicious cycle of addiction, despair, and destruction,” U.S. Attorney Cullen said. “We have no higher priority than investigating drug-dealing physicians and other corrupt health-care practitioners and putting them in federal prison.”
During the two years of operation out of Smither’s Martinsville office every patient seen was prescribed some sort of Schedule II controlled substance leading to over half a million doses being given out. The drugs involved included oxymorphone, oxycodone, hydromorphone, and fentanyl. Smithers office didn’t accept insurance and during the same window took in over $700,000 in cash and credit card payments with the majority of his patients traveling hundreds of miles to be seen.
The judge in the case remanded Smithers into custody pending sentencing which is scheduled to take place August 16th. Smithers is facing a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison with a maximum of a life sentence along with a max of $200 million in fines.