A physician assistant at Baton Rouge-based Louisiana Spine & Sports was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a scheme to unlawfully distribute prescriptions for oxycodone pills.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles sentenced Christopher Armnstrong, 45, to seven years in prison with three years of supervised release and ordered him to forfeit $168,000 earned through the scheme.
Mr. Armstrong worked at Louisiana Spine & Sports from August 2004 until January 2014. He admitted to logging in to the clinic's computer system and creating fraudulent prescriptions for controlled substances. He printed the prescriptions and then either forged a physician's signature or had a physician sign them unknowingly.
He then distributed the prescriptions to several co-conspirators, who filled and returned them to him in exchange for cash. He covered his tracks by deleting the fraudulent prescriptions from the clinic's records.
Mr. Armstrong admitted to writing prescriptions for at least 40,470 oxycodone pills from May 2009 through March 2014. In November 2018, he pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone.
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