Port Orange, FL - A 60-year-old Port Orange physician was sentenced to over 11 years in prison on Thursday for selling prescriptions for drugs like oxycodone and morphine out of his apartment.
Michael Morgan Dietch was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in federal prison for selling controlled substances such as oxycodone, hydromorphone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, morphine, and methadone between June 2011 and August 2012 to around 200 patients without a legitimate medical purpose. He pleaded guilty to these charges on October 28, 2016.
During that period he arranged for patients to come to his apartment, where he would sell them the prescriptions, through text messages. He saw as many as 18 patients per day at his apartment and he charged them $100 to $150 in cash for an appointment that usually lasted less than 10 minutes.
Many of Dietch's patients were drug addicts who sold and traded the prescription pills they got from him, and Dietrich knew about it.
Dietrich bonded 2 of his patients out of jail for drug-related charges and continued to give them prescriptions for controlled substances. Dietch would even write prescriptions for patients who would have them filled out then give the drugs back to him. He would then either use those pills himself or give them to other people.
“This was a fitting sentence for someone who abused his physician’s license to pedal dangerous, deadly, addictive substances without any demonstrated medical need.” said Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chitwood.
Photo courtesy David Smart and Shutterstock.com.
Copyright Southern Stone Communications 2016.
