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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A physician has been accused of writing prescriptions in a purported OxyContin drug ring that had gang ties.
Dr. Alexander Theodore was named in an 83-count federal grand jury indictment that included charges of ongoing criminal enterprise, crimes against the United States, conspiracy to distribute drugs and drug distribution.
Prosecutors have charged about 56 people in the OxyContin ring.
"It's huge," said Joe Christensen, director of the state Insurance Department's Insurance Fraud Division. "Absolutely huge.... The more we looked into it, the more it grew."
The ring allegedly included 234 people who recruited other patients.
The Utah Division of Professional and Occupational Licensing Web site shows Theodore's medical license status as "active on probation."
Theodore worked part time under contract with the University of Utah College of Nursing to provide medical services at the Salt Lake Valley Detention Center, where he treated residents as a physician. Theodore had been there about five years and no longer works there.
The alleged illegal prescription-writing did not take place at the detention facility.
An affidavit for a search warrant alleged that at Advanced Pain & Weight Management, Theodore charged supposed patients $400 to $500 for an office visit, which was for sole purpose of providing OxyContin.
The affidavit alleged that recruiters sought people whose insurance covered the pain medication and set up an appointment for them with Theodore.
The recruiters sometimes would pay the office visit fee, and in return would get at least 75 percent of the patient's OxyContin, the affidavit alleged.
Christensen said that for some, it was a way to make money, but most were feeding their own drug habit and did not view the prescriptions as insurance fraud.
"It just ballooned into this very complex organization," Christensen said. "It was very well organized."
Eventually, the drug ring cut into traditional heroin sales and crossed a street gang. As a result, the gang started to receive a cut of the OxyContin pills, which it sold to its clientele, and provided enforcers in the drug ring, Christensen said.
Enforcers allegedly also included a couple of juvenile detention center employees, who have been terminated from the center, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The drug ring came to the attention of state authorities by pharmacists who noticed younger people were coming in with OxyContin prescriptions and suspected something was going on.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
