Arlington doctor sentenced for conspiring to ‘push pills,’ distributing illegal prescriptions
A doctor from Arlington has been sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for drug crimes and fraud, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Clinton Battle, 69, was convicted in July 2021 of one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and one count of distribution of a controlled substance, according to a news release from the Justice Department. Later that same month, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
Over five years, Battle wrote more than 50,000 illegal prescriptions for controlled substances, 17,000 of which were for hydrocodone, according to the release.
Battle routinely prescribed controlled substances including hydrocodone, alprazolam, acetaminophen with codeine, tramadol and phentermine outside of his professional practice and without any legitimate medical purpose, according to the news release. At times, he told his office staff to issue prescriptions for whatever controlled substances a patient wanted and would write prescriptions without any medical examination.
He also gave prescriptions to family and friends for whom he was not a physician, according to the news release.
One of his former employees testified that she, her husband and Battle agreed that the doctor would prescribe controlled substances to her husband and in return they would supply him with cocaine, according to the news release. He would also be paid by people to whom he illegally prescribed the controlled substances, charging $200 for the initial prescription and $80 for each prescription after that.
In his guilty plea for conspiracy to commit mail fraud, Battle admitted to defrauding worker’s compensation by conspiring to submit claims for evaluations he said he conducted himself and that took several hours, according to the release.
His unlicensed assistants were actually the ones to conduct the evaluations, and those evaluations took much less time than he claimed, according to the release.
“Dealers of illegal drugs come in many forms. This is a case of the abuse of trust and position,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Eduardo A. Chávez said in the Justice Department news release. “Dr. Battle and his co-conspirators used their authority to push pills into our neighborhoods disregarding the inherent harm they cause. DEA’s teamwork with our federal and local area law enforcement agencies make it possible to pursue any person distributing illegal drugs, no matter the disguise.”