ALBANY — A doctor from Clifton Park has been charged with a federal felony for allegedly handing out drug prescriptions without proper medical exams and with the intent of splitting drugs with patients, officials said.

Scott McMahon, 50, was arrested Monday after a multi-agency federal and state investigation that he wrote prescriptions “for no legitimate medical purpose” to children and others, taking “kickbacks” of drugs in exchange for the prescriptions, according to federal prosecutors.

He was charged with distributing controlled substances outside the course of professional practice and for no legitimate medical purpose between December 2018 and last April.

McMahon is a psychiatrist and principal in Transformative Medicine Center, which treats addiction and mental illnesses, and has practiced in Saratoga Springs and elsewhere around the Capital District.

He is accused of misusing Ritalin and buprenorphine prescriptions, issuing them in the names of children without exams, to the boyfriend of a patient and to patients who weren’t examined in exchange for some of the drugs, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albany.