Two North Texas Doctors, One Nurse Sentenced to Prison for Federal Drug Trafficking Violations
PLANO, Texas – Three medical professionals have been sentenced to federal prison over the last week in the Eastern District of Texas for the illegal distribution of opioids and other pharmaceutical controlled substances, announced U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown today.
Today in federal court in Plano, Howard Gregg Diamond, 58, of Sherman, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and 10 years in prison for health care fraud. The sentences, handed down by U.S. District Judge Marcia A. Crone, follow Diamond’s guilty plea in October of 2018 and will run concurrently.
According to information presented in court, beginning in 2010, Diamond wrote prescriptions for hydrocodone, oxymorphone, methadone, fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone, alprazolam, and zolpidem, from his pain management medical offices in Sherman and Paris, Texas without a legitimate medical purpose. Specifically, on July 15, 2014, Diamond distributed or dispensed morphine, oxycodone, alprazolam and zolpidem to an individual that resulted in that individual’s death on July 25, 2014. In addition to the death of that patient, Judge Crone received information that six other overdose deaths were connected to prescriptions written by Diamond between 2010 and 2017. The health care fraud conviction resulted from Diamond submitting a claim for reimbursement to Medicare claiming he treated a Medicare patient on Sep. 29, 2015, although he was in another state at that time. Diamond was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 6, 2017.
On May 3, former Richardson doctor Tad W. Taylor, 64, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison by Judge Crone for conspiracy to distribute and dispense oxycodone, amphetamine salts, hydrocodone, alprazolam and promethazine with codeine. Taylor’s wife, Chia Jen Lee, also known as Chia Jen Lee-Taylor, a registered nurse, was sentenced to 188 months in federal prison for the same charge. Taylor and Lee had previously been convicted of the charges by a jury following a seven day trial in October of 2018.
Read more: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edtx/pr/two-north-texas-doctors-one-nurse-sentenced-prison-federal-drug-trafficking-violations
