Another Tampa Pain Clinic Investigated; Doctor Arrested

For months, the Tampa Police Department investigated 1st Medical Group, a pain clinic that operated on Dale Mabry Highway. They claim that drug addicts from Ohio, California and New York used the clinic to obtain narcotics by prescription. Law enforcement says that orders for 2.4 million pain pills were generated by the clinic in just seven months.

The clinic’s co-owners Jorge Gonzalez Betancourt and Michele Gonzalez and physician Kimberly Daffern were arrested and charged with racketeering, trafficking in a controlled substance and conspiracy to traffic in a controlled substance.

According to police, at least five patients of 1st Medical Group died of overdoses. If the deaths are linked to pills unnecessarily prescribed at the clinic, manslaughter charges could be added.

Police seized voluminous medical records after a July search at the business. They claim that, from January to July, the clinic had prescribed pain pills to about 9,000 people, including oxycodone that had a street value of $24 million to $60 million.

At the Betancourt/Gonzalez residence, investigators found $132,584 in cash in a suitcase as well as $5,050 in the clinic’s safe and $82,610 in the trunk of Betancourt’s BMW.

Two physicians who reviewed 107 randomly selected patient files from the clinic opined that 92 percent of those patients didn’t need the pills they were prescribed.

Illegal prescriptions and related crimes have been headline grabbers in the Tampa Bay area over the last several years.

In September, Hillsborough prosecutors tried a Seffner doctor who was accused of unnecessarily prescribing pain pills to undercover detectives. The case ended in mistrial when the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict. Prosecutors declined to refile and retry the case (generally an indication that they do not believe the case is strong enough to try again).

See Also:

• Tampa Pain Clinic Owners and Pharmacist Indicted
• Tampa Area Doctor Charged with Overprescribing Pain Meds
• Doctor from Tampa & St. Pete Pain Clinics Indicted on Drug Charges
• Another Tampa Area Doctor Charged with Illegal Prescriptions
• Several Arrested on Hernando Prescription Drug Charges
• Former St. Petersburg Pharmacist Pleads Guilty to Prescription Fraud