CT: “I Think You’re Lying”: Opioid-Scam Doc Falls Short In Stay-Out-Of-Prison Plea

New Haven Independent –

The doctor, Jennifer Farrell, prescribed oxycodone to patients whom she had never seen and who did not need the medication.

The judge wasn’t buying it.

At a four-hour sentencing hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in New Haven, a former Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) emergency department doctor who pleaded guilty in March to masterminding an opioid scam pleaded with the judge for leniency.

The doctor, Jennifer Farrell, prescribed oxycodone to patients whom she had never seen and who did not need the medication. She “wrote illegal prescriptions for nearly 4,000 oxycodone tablets” over a year, according to the government.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Farrell, who’s 38, asked the judge, Jeffrey Meyer, to spare her any prison time. Unpersuaded by some of her claims, Meyer ultimately sentenced her to 30 days behind bars.

Before that happened, Farrell told Meyer that she suffered from an opioid addiction that was “too far gone” when she arrived at Yale. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take that step” to get help, she said. “Knowing how to do something and being able to do it are two different things.”

Farrell’s attorney, federal public defender Kelly Barrett, told Meyer that untreated past traumas led Farrell to commit her crimes and rendered her unable to ask for help, Barrett added.

Barrett argued that it was Farrell’s “addiction that caused her to be dishonest.”

Meyer asked Farrell why she did not refer to Yale’s “extensive proactive efforts” offered to doctors in her situation.

“It sure looked to me like this is an organization that very much opened the door and encouraged her to seek wellness checks, to seek mental health for the stress that she was feeling,” he said. “I have that concern here. Especially in light of what I understand, Mrs. Farrell claiming that she did not know how to seek help.”

Barrett said Yale is not at fault but argued that “there’s a difference between availability of resources and often accessibility.”

Judge Meyer said he was doubtful as well that Farrell was unaware of the illegal implications of her crimes, as she claimed when the scam was ultimately discovered.

“You did know,” Meyer said. “There’s no doubt before you even got to New Haven, that you were aware of the insidious risk of drug addiction.”

“I think you’re lying,” Meyer said at another point.

He said his sentence was based on Farrell’s deceptive tendencies, by the “lengths that you went through to do these prescriptions in an improper way.”

Following Farrell’s imprisonment term, she will be required to complete three years of supervised release. During this time, she must also complete 200 hours of community service each year for three years.

Meyer was more persuaded by a “second-chance” appeal by a woman Farrell enlisted as a middlewoman in the scam. Click here to read about her April 26 sentencing.

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