The alleged conspiracy involving Scranage and Harper occurred from July 2011 until February 2015, according to officials.

A nine-page indictment alleges that Harper recruited people, whose names were given to Scranage, who wrote prescriptions for them. Harper and others paid Scranage for the prescriptions.

Jeffrey L. Everhart, Harper’s attorney, painted a picture of his client having a less than lavish lifestyle and got an investigator to acknowledge on the stand that she had no knowledge of Harper owning a boat or big house or attending major sporting events, for example.

But the investigator instead described a man who was a gambling addict and who had built up a gambling debt of at least $50,000, which she says he was attempting to pay off through the prescription drug sale operation.

Harper had recruits fill the prescriptions for the 30 mg oxycodone pills at licensed pharmacies, according to the federal indictment. The “patients” who allowed their names to be used were paid by Harper, who then sold the pills to “sub-dealers or users,” according to officials.

Scranage, on the other hand, was a self-described pain management specialist for the past five years, according to the indictment.