Linares empire.jpg

An employee of a Monroe doctor who pleaded guilty to illegal drug distribution in 2015 told a DEA agent during the federal investigation she heard Dr. Oscar Linares say: "We are building an empire. We are on top and we are untouchable."

((Excerpt from DEA report))

DETROIT -- A Monroe doctor was sentenced Tuesday to four years and nine months in prison for running a "pain management" facility that illegally distributed unnecessary prescription drugs to as many as 250 patients a day over three years.

Federal agents and prosecutors claimed Oscar Linares, 59, at times pre-signed prescription pads for employees who gave patients access to drugs without a doctor's involvement.

An undercover agent from the Drug Enforcement Agency posed as patient in 2009 and 2010 and was granted prescriptions for Vicodin and Percocet on five separate visits to Linares' office -- without ever seeing a doctor.

Prosecutors said patients would pick a number upon entering the office and were seen at a rapid-fire pace, usually paying in cash, but sometimes using Medicare, which was charged for medical examinations that were never performed.

"A vacuum tube was set up (similar to those at banks) so prescriptions could be sent back to Dr. Linares's office and then back to the front desk, enabling him to sign controlled substance prescriptions without leaving his desk," prosecutors alleged in court filings.

"When he was too busy to sign prescriptions for patients he did not see, he would send the prescriptions back with instructions for employees to sign the prescriptions for him."

The drug distribution at Linares' offices took place between April 2008 and March 2011, according to the U.S. Attorney's office, which accused the doctor of prescribing millions of dosages of narcotics like oxycodone and opana.

After authorities executed a search warrant at Linares' Monroe strip mall clinic in 2011, shutting the business down, he was indicted in 2013 and pleaded guilty in December 2015 to unlawful distribution of controlled substances and health care fraud.

Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts for a nearly six-year sentence.

Linares' lawyer asked for less than the 57 months he got.

"What began as a legitimate medical practice morphed into a practice that ultimately issued controlled substance prescriptions for non-legitimate purposes," defense attorney Stanley Marks argued in a court filing.

"... During the course of his career, he conducted sophisticated and valuable research on opioid prescription protocols but, at the same time, ignored warning signs in his patients and rationalized writing opioid prescriptions he knew were likely being abused... But Dr. Linares' personal characteristics, both before and since his offense, do not suggest a life of criminality nor is an unduly long sentence required to serve as a deterrent."

In addition to the prison sentence, Roberts ordered three years of supervised release and the forfeiture of $236,000, a 1987 Ferrari Testarossa, a 2005 Bentley Continental, a 2005 Porsche 911, two Hummers, a 2007 Lincoln Town Car, a 2006 Lexus RX400, two boats, Louis Vuitton luggage and jewelry including Rolex and Invicta watches.

"This doctor will spend nearly five years in prison for running a pill mill and fueling the prescription drug addiction epidemic," said U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade in a statement. "Doctors who poison our community by pushing pain pills for profit will be treated as criminals and held accountable."