A nurse practitioner who called himself the ‘rock doc’ has been jailed for 20 years for illegally prescribing thousands of doses of opioids including oxycodone and fentanyl in return for money and sex.
Jeffrey W Young Jr, who worked in the city of Jackson in Tennessee, was one of 60 people charged in 2019 over their alleged roles in illegally prescribing and distributing pills containing opioids and other drugs.
Young, 49, was among the 53 medical professionals in the group accused of providing around 350,000 prescriptions and 32 million pills, prosecutors said.
He was found guilty last year and was sentenced in Memphis on Monday.
Federal prosecutors said he illegally prescribed more than 100,000 doses of hydrocodone, oxycodone, and fentanyl, including to a pregnant woman, from his clinic in Jackson.
The drugs were highly addictive and had a high risk of abuse.
He tried to promote a ‘rock doc’ reality TV pilot and podcast while selling prescriptions and drugs for sex and money.
His clinic was known for its party atmosphere, prosecutors said – and he promoted his practice with the motto “work hard, play harder”.
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Assistant US attorney general Nicole M Argentieri, head of the justice department’s criminal division, said: “The self-proclaimed ‘rock doc’ abused the power of the prescription pad to supply his small community with hundreds of thousands of doses of highly addictive prescription opioids to obtain money, notoriety, and sexual favours.”
His actions, “endangered his patients and the community as a whole,” Argentieri said.