60 People Charged in Illegal Prescription Opioid Crackdown

Douglas Overbey, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, speaks beside members of Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force, during a news conference in Cincinnati, on April 17, 2019. John Minchillo/AP Photo

CINCINNATI—Federal authorities said Wednesday, April 18, they have charged 60 people, including a doctor accused of trading drugs for sex and another of prescribing to his Facebook friends, for their roles in illegally prescribing and distributing millions of pills containing opioids and other drugs.

U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman of Cincinnati described the action, with 31 doctors facing charges, as the biggest known takedown yet of drug prescribers. Robert Duncan, U.S. attorney for eastern Kentucky, called the doctors involved “white-coated drug dealers.”