An Ohio physician was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison for unlawfully distributing opioids from his clinic, officials stated.
Between October 2014 and September 2019, officials stated that Romano prescribed over 137,000 pills, including opioids, benzodiazepines, and muscle relaxants, to nine people.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Thomas Romano, 74, of Wheeling, West Virginia, owned and operated a self-named pain management clinic in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio.
Individuals traveled hundreds of miles to obtain prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances, according to officials.
The prescriptions Romano issued for opioids and other controlled substances greatly exceeded recommended dosages.
They were in dangerous, life-threatening combinations that fueled the addiction of the individuals to whom he prescribed.
A federal jury convicted Romano in September 2023 of 24 counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances in violation of the Controlled Substances Act.
The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, the FBI, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, and others looked into this case.
Trial attorneys Devon Helfmeyer and Danielle Sakowski and counsel Alexis Gregorian of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case.