Wrote Prescriptions in the Names of Patients to Obtain Drugs for His Own Use
GREENBELT, Md. (Oct. 23, 2015)—U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm sentenced Peter Wisniewski, age 52, of Huntingtown, Maryland, a physician in a Calvert County medical group, today to three years of probation for writing prescriptions for Oxycodone and Adderall in the names of three of his patients that he then kept for his own use. Judge Grimm also ordered Wisniewski to pay a fine of $40,000, which Wisniewski paid at today’s sentencing hearing.
As required in his plea agreement, Wisniewski voluntarily surrendered his DEA controlled substances license and agreed that he would not practice medicine for at least two years.
The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Nicholas DiGiulio, Office of Investigations, Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services; and Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans.
According to his plea agreement, between March 2012 and April 2015, Wisniewski wrote prescriptions for Oxycodone and Adderall in the names of three elderly patients but kept the drugs for himself. Wisniewski caused the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions, and he picked up the prescriptions without the knowledge or authorization of the patients in whose names he had written the prescriptions. Wisniewski falsely represented to the pharmacy that as the prescribing physician he was collecting the prescriptions in order to deliver them to his elderly patients.
To conceal the scheme, Wisniewski created false entries in the medical files of the three patients in whose names he was writing the prescriptions. During the scheme Wisniewski obtained more than 8,000 Oxycodone pills written in the names of those three patients.
The decision whether to allow Wisniewski to practice medicine at all in the future will ultimately be made by the state medical board.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Leah J. Bressack and Lindsay Eyler Kaplan, who prosecuted the case.
Source: Office of United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein