Joel Smithers is a 36-year-old Virginia doctor who has just received a 40-year prison sentence in jail on Wednesday, October 2, 2019 for prescribing more than half a million doses of oxycodone, hydromorphone, fentanyl and highly addictive opioids in just two years when He started his small medical office in Martinsville, Virginia, in 2015. The doctor was sentenced for 40 years that included a minimum sentence of 20 years for his conviction for prescribing opioids that caused the death of a woman in West Virginia. He has also been charged a fine of $ 86,000 in addition.
Why is Joel Smithers known?
- Smithers is known as the educated doctor who illegally prescribed more than half a dozen drugs to his patients.
Where and when was Joel Smithers born?
Joel Smithers was born in 1983 A.D. in Virginia, United States. His birth name is Joel Smithers. His nationality is American. Smithers belongs to the white ethnic group. Joel Smithers earned his medical degree from DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine at Lincoln Memorial University in 2012.
Is Joel Smithers married?
Dr. Joel Smithers is a married man. He is the father of his five children.
What are the accusations of Joel Smithers?
It is alleged that Dr. Joel Smithers distributed very highly addictive opioid drugs to his patients who did not even need it and distributed more than 500,000 List II controlled substances in less than two years. Dr. Smithers delivered the drugs without a legitimate medical purpose and that was also operating "beyond the limits of medical practice."
Smithers lost his right to practice medicine after the case was alleged and later due to his harsh behavior towards people's health, the Virginia Board of Medicine formally suspended his medical license.
He opened his own clinic in Virginia in 2015 and in two years he prescribed highly addictive substances to please almost half a million people, as reported after his office was raided in 2017.
In addition, of all those deaths in 2017, it was reported that about 68% of the death was related to the prescription or an illicit opioid.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 700,000 people died in the United States from drug overdoses between 1999 and 2017, including 70,000 in 2017 alone.
How long is Joel Smithers sentenced?
Martinsville-based doctor Joel Smithers is currently sentenced to 40 years in prison after the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia handed down the sentence after a nine-day jury trial in court. in Abingdon. The sentence includes a minimum of 20 years for the conviction of Smithers for prescribing opioids that caused the death of a woman in West Virginia.
Smithers was convicted by a jury in May 2019, for 861 federal drug charges, including a possession charge intended to distribute controlled substances and a charge to maintain a place for the purpose of illegally distributing controlled substances.
How much does Dr. Joel Smithers earn?
Joel Smithers made great silent gains from his career as a professional doctor. Along with his career, he even managed to accumulate a large fortune of the amount in thousands of dollars of his illegal act of prescribing his patients with very addictive drugs and charging in his pocket.
After a search warrant was executed in his office in March 2017, Smithers had managed to accumulate a payment of $ 700,000 in cash and credit cards.
Smithers called his patients to obtain opioids from different parts of the world, including Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. As soon as they became addicted, they began buying drugs in large quantities, which pocketed a large amount. Surely with years of practicing illegal acts, he must have managed to obtain a fortune in millions of dollars.
However, after his license was suspended, the court document fined him with $ 86,000 that he was ordered to pay in full. It also faces a maximum fine of more than $ 200 million.
