A federal jury in Texas found a physician guilty of unlawfully distributing over a million pills of opioids and other controlled substances from a Houston-area clinic that operated as a pill mill, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Dr. Barbara Marino, 65, of Tomball, was the sole prescribing physician at Angels Clinica, where she prescribed oxycodone, hydrocodone, and the muscle relaxer carisoprodol despite no legitimate medical purpose. The clinic accepted only cash and charged based on the prescriptions.
“Medical physicians who exploit their prescribing authority for profit over patient care break an inherent trust with their patients and we will hold them accountable,” Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said in a statement. “The Department of Justice remains committed to protecting the public from dangerous and unlawful distribution of controlled substances, especially when the drug dealer is a doctor.”…