A doctor in Virginia could spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of more than 800 counts of illegally prescribing drugs.

Joel Smithers faces sentencing on Wednesday over the charges, with the shortest possible sentence he could receive based on sentencing guidelines being 20 years, The Associated Press reported.

Between 2015 and 2017, Smithers prescribed more than half a million doses of highly addictive opioid painkillers, including oxycodone and oxymorphone. One of his prescriptions led to the death of a West Virginia woman.

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Christopher Dziedzic, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent, ran the investigation of Smithers and told the AP that the 36-year-old doctor did "great damage and contributed ... to the overall problem in the heartland of the opioid crisis."

More than 400,000 Americans have died as a result of the national opioid epidemic over the past two decades, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Appalachia, where Smithers's practice was located, has been especially ravaged by the crisis. From 2006 to 2015, Martinsville, Va., the town where Smithers ran his business, ranked third in the number of opioid pills received per capita, according to the AP.

Smithers testified during his trial that he faced large numbers of patients coming from other states after nearby clinics had been shut down, saying he treated the patients but with the goal of getting them off certain high-dose drugs.

He was convicted in May of hundreds of counts of illegally prescribing drugs.