Doctor Arrested for Illegally Prescribing OxyContin and Other Painkillers
A doctor in York, Pennsylvania, Dr. Michael John Dobish, was arrested last week for illegally prescribing large quantities of painkillers to a tenant, Lionel Seases, who then sold the drugs on the street. Dobish, age 60, is out on $50,000 bail. Charges may include dispensing, delivery or prescription of a controlled substance and Medicaid fraud, both felonies.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office estimated that the drugs had a street value of around $535,000.
Attorney General Tom Corbett announced that Dr. Dobish had prescribed more than 9,500 OxyContin, 200 Percocet, and 200 Vicodin for Sease over the last year. In addition, Medicaid was billed $73,000 for the prescriptions Dobish wrote Sease between June 2009 and January.
Sease currently is being held in York County Prison in lieu of $25,000 bail for allegedly selling the painkillers obtained through prescriptions from Dr. Dobish. Court documents indicate Sease has prior drug arrests involving cocaine. He pled guilty to two cases and was sentenced to 16 years in prison in November. He had not begun serving time yet because he was awaiting knee surgery. It is not yet clear if Dr. Dobish was the doctor who wrote the note to the court about the need for the surgery. Sease was renting a house from Dr. Dobish at the time of his arrest.