Virginia doctor sentenced to 40 years in opioid case

ABINGDON, Va. – A doctor who prosecutors said ran a medical practice in Virginia like an interstate drug distribution ring was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years in prison for illegally prescribing opioids.

Dr. Joel Smithers was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Abingdon.

Judge James Jones sentenced Smithers to 40 years. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of life.

Smithers was convicted in May of more than 800 counts of illegally distributing opioids, including oxycodone and oxymorphone that caused the death of a West Virginia woman.

Authorities say Smithers prescribed more than 500,000 doses of opioids to patients from Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Tennessee while based in Martinsville, Virginia, from 2015 to 2017.

U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said the sentence, while severe, “serves as just punishment” for Smithers’ actions.

“This physician perpetuated, on a massive scale, the vicious cycle of addiction and despair,” Cullen said in a statement.

Smithers, 36, a married father of five from Greensboro, North Carolina, testified that he was a caring doctor who was deceived by some of his patients.

Some patients remained fiercely loyal to him, testifying that they needed the powerful opioids he prescribed for them to cope with chronic pain.

WSET-TV reported that the judge recommended that Smithers serve his sentence in a prison close to his family and that he receive mental health treatment.

Smithers wrote in a court filing that he plans to appeal his convictions. His attorney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the sentence.