A former Simpson County physician will spend more than four years in prison for over-prescribing pain killers and anti-anxiety medication. Roy Reynolds was sentenced in federal court in Bowling Green on Friday.
Roy Reynolds has been held in the Grayson County Detention Center since his conviction in April on 15 counts of illegal distribution of controlled substances outside the course of professional medical practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.
The 69-year-old Reynolds appeared in prison garb alongside his attorney Alan Simpson who argued for a sentence range of probation to 24 months behind bars. Prosecutors were seeking a 168-month sentence.
In asking for leniency, Reynolds said he never set out to intentionally harm anyone.
U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers sentenced Reynolds to 50 months in prison, a $25,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. Following the sentencing, U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman spoke to reporters outside the federal courthouse in Bowling Green.
"We're blessed in this commonwealth with phenomenal doctors," Coleman stated. "What we're dealing with up there is a doctor who abandoned his oath and became a drug dealer."
At trial, prosecutors argued that from 2010 to 2012, Dr. Reynolds was in the top two percent of all Kentucky doctors for oxycodone prescriptions, the top five percent for hydrocodone, and top four percent for benzodiazepines, such as Xanax.
One of Reynolds' patients who overdosed and died had a history of illicit drug use and psychiatric issues. Prosecutors argued at trial that Reynolds placed the patient on a regimen of chronic opiate therapy, failed to hold the man accountable by conducting urine screens and pill counts, and didn't attempt to wean the patient off of opiates. Reynolds was acquitted in the patient's death.
Reynolds' attorney Alan Simpson told WKU Public Radio that he believes the Franklin family practitioner fell behind the times as Kentucky's opioid epidemic worsened.
"Are there some bad physicians? Sure, there are bad physicians, but Dr. Reynolds is not one of them," Reynold commented. "Was he negligent? Sure. I’ll go to my grave thinking he did not set out to do this on purpose.”
Reynolds will be required to serve his full 50-month prison term because there is no probation in the federal judicial system.
