Doctor Jailed for Frivolous Prescriptions

A Virginia doctor was sentenced to prison this week in federal court on charges of medical malpractice and tax evasion.

Judge Richard Stearns gave the doctor, Torrino Jennings one year and one day in jail, followed by three years of supervised release, after the man pleaded guilty to seven counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and four counts of tax evasion. He faced a maximum prison term of 27 years and $1.7 million in fines.

According to the verdict, Jennings wrote prescriptions over the internet for people he had never met or examined. The drugs, shipments of a muscle relaxant called SOMA, were deemed to be misbranded by the court because they were dispensed without a valid prescription.

Court documents say that the doctor issued between 50,000 and 100,000 prescriptions over the internet for SOMA and other drugs between 2004 and 2007. The indictment says that online pharmacies paid Jennings $5 to $7 for each prescription he wrote and "virtually no request for drugs submitted by the online pharmacies to Jennings for endorsement was ever rejected," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

In 1999 the Institute of Medicine reported that medical malpractice contributed to about 98,000 each year.