A dentist in Virginia Beach has been sentenced to nearly eight and a half years in prison for conspiracy to distribute prescription opioids and muscle relaxant pills without a legitimate medical purpose.
According to court documents, Gary Hartman, 48, has been a licensed dentist in Virginia since 2002. From 2014 to 2018, he was involved in an elaborate scheme to prescribe opioids such as hydrocodone and oxycodone pills for his personal use and the use of his co-conspirators, who fell into three categories of individuals.
The first category included close friends whom Hartman had known since high school. He would write prescriptions for oxycodone to them without a legitimate medical purpose. They would then fill the prescriptions and bring most of the pills for his personal use and keep the remainder for themselves.
Second, Hartman’s scheme involved another dentist. Hartman and this other dentist would write prescriptions to each other for oxycodone and muscle relaxants for their personal use.
Third, Hartman would promise free dental work to people who were impoverished. In exchange, these people would fill prescriptions for oxycodone that Hartman wrote and bring the pills back to him for his personal use.
This conspiracy involved 766 prescriptions written for non-medical reasons and almost 40,000 oxycodone pills.
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