MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A physician and a pharmacist, both from Monongalia County, pleaded guilty in federal court to drug charges.
Chad Poage, 35, of Morgantown, pleaded guilty to one count of acquiring or obtaining possession of a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge.
Poage was an orthopedic surgeon with practices in Morgantown and Fairmont. He admitted to writing 30 fradulent prescriptions from Nov. 2015 to March 2018 for his own use.
Those prescriptions amounted to 1,330 50-milligram tablets of Tramadol, 420 5-milligram tablets of Diazepram, and 50 30-milligram tablets of acetaminophen-codeine no. 3.
Poage further admitted that on each of the 30 prescriptions, he either wrote colleagues’ DEA registration numbers without their authorization or wrote the prescription out to a patient knowing that he would pick up the prescribed medication for his own use.
Poage also admitted that, on multiple occasions, he presented stolen driver’s licenses when picking up fraudulent prescriptions from pharmacies.
A federal grand jury indicted Poage in April.
Meanwhile, a pharmacist, 40-year-old Scott D. Tingler of Morgantown, pleaded guilty in a separate case to illegally distributing oxycodone.
Tingler pleaded to one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances outside the bounds of professional medical practice and one count of false tax return.
The plea included a confession that Tingler distributed more than 7,400 grams of oxycodone in Monongalia County and elsewhere from Aug. 2014 to Aug. 2018.
The false tax return charge stems from an April 2015 return.
Tingler agreed to relinquish his pharmacy license, not to seek reinstatement, and agrees to not seek employment in any position that would require or permit him to handle or dispense controlled substances during any period of incarceration or probation.
The plea also includes an agreement that Tingler will pay 28 percent of his unreported gross income from tax years 2014 through 2017, forfeit property or proceeds from the drug offense in the amount of $1.845 million dollars, and forfeit a 2016 GMC Sierra 3500HD truck.
Tingler faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million dollars on the drug count and up to three years and a fine of up to $250,000 on the tax count.
Sentencing is scheduled at a later date.