Staff Writer

A former Roseboro doctor has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for illegally dispensing drugs from his local practice on several occasions in 2002 and 2003.

Perry Reese III, 51, was sentenced to 240 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release, during a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in New Bern late last week.

A federal grand jury returned a criminal indictment in April 2008 charging Reese with two counts of distribution of a controlled substance and one count of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. In February 2009, a federal jury found Reese guilty on all counts. One year later, he was given his punishment.

In December 2002, the State Bureau of Investigation began its investigation of Reese, the owner and sole physician of Roseboro Urgent Care, when one of his patient’s approached the SBI about numerous prescriptions for Oxycontin and other drugs he had been purchasing from a Sampson County physician.

According to investigators, the patient was taking 30-35 Oxycontin pills each day and chewing them for a faster effect — all at the direction of Reese. During trial, the government’s medical expert testified that these practices were not only illegal, but endangered the life of the patient.

Based on that information, the SBI conducted four controlled purchases from Reese.

In December 2002, two separate prescription purchases were made from Reese, one for 45 Oxycontin pills. Those were followed by purchases of Oxycontin and Percocet in February 2003 and April 2003. According to investigators, Reese conducted no medical examination and there was no pretense of medical treatment.

In April 2003, SBI agents searched Roseboro Urgent Care and seized “loose prescriptions, controlled substances and certain patient files.” All of Reese’s patient files were subsequently seized and, as witnesses were interviewed, including all employees and several patients, “several patterns emerged,” investigators said.

Some patients would go in and see Reese without paying any office visit fee or checking in with the front desk. While back in the room with Reese, he would sell them prescriptions or pills. Other patients would get their prescriptions from the front desk.

Reese’s patients offered some of the most damning evidence during his trial.

Testimony at trial showed that Reese wrote prescriptions without conducting a medical examination, without asking the witnesses questions about pain or treatment and without attempting to treat the underlying illness or problem. For two of Reese’s patients, the evidence also showed that he prescribed so many drugs, he also wrote prescriptions in the names of their friends and family members to hide the number of pills he was prescribing for each patient.

Reese also met patients in parking lots and at gas stations, according to testimony.

For all of the prescriptions, the patients paid a fee, often based on the number of pills in the prescription. One of the patients purchased Oxycontin pills directly from him.

One patient testified that she paid Reese in cash, jewelry and a generator for her prescriptions. The patients testified to becoming addicted to the pills they were receiving, some of them attending rehabilitation. And, despite Reese’s knowledge of this, he continued to provide them unlimited amounts of Percocet and Oxycontin, they said.

At Reese’s sentencing, the court found he had illegally dispensed or distributed approximately 174.2 grams of Oxycodone, the legal equivalent in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines of 1,166 kilograms of marijuana. The court also found that Reese had abused a position of trust and used a minor in the commission of the crime, as well as perjured himself while on trial.

Two of Reese’s employees, Linda McLaurin Burney, 48, and her daughter, Marvesa Lanatee McLaurin, 25, both of Roseboro, were previously convicted in separate trials of perjury and sentenced in January. Burney received 36 months imprisonment and McLaurin, who was a teenage student job shadowing her mother when she first came to work for Reese, received six months in prison. Both sentences will be followed by three years supervised release.

Assistant United States Attorney David Bragdon represented the government in the case, one that U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said was an example of a person of trust abusing his role.

“Physicians are given wide discretion to provide drugs to those with a medical need. said Holding in a prepared statement. “Physicians who violate the principles of their profession and endanger the lives of their patients deserve to be severely punished.”

Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137, ext. 121, or by email at sicrime@myclintonnc.com.