U.S. moves to seize $1.6 million tied to doctor suspected of feeding drug abuse in KY
The federal government wants to seize $1.6 million linked to a doctor who ran a clinic suspected of illegally prescribing millions of pills that helped feed drug abuse and addiction in Kentucky.
Prosecutors filed a motion seeking to take the money, plus two Mercedes-Benz cars, from accounts related to David Bruce Coffey.
Coffey operated a clinic in Oneida, Tenn., that federal and state authorities raided in June 2018. Police took the cash and cars from Coffey and people and businesses close to him, but the government hadn’t filed a formal forfeiture motion until recently.
The motion to forfeit Coffey’s assets to the government is a civil matter. Prosecutors have not yet filed criminal charges against Coffey.
However, a sworn statement with the motion to seize the cash and cars makes clear authorities believe Coffey’s clinic was a key supplier to drug traffickers in the southern part of Kentucky and in Tennessee for years.
Police have identified drug-trafficking organizations in Pulaski, Russell and McCreary counties in Kentucky that used Coffey’s clinic as the main source of prescriptions for drugs they sold, according to an affidavit from Shawn W. Rogers, a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Police believe Coffey and people associated with him conspired to improperly prescribe millions of doses of drugs, including pain pills called opioids, to people from Kentucky and Tennessee, Rogers said in the Dec. 23 affidavit.
Coffey’s attorney, Gregory P. Isaacs, said Monday that it is “significant to note that Dr. Coffey has not been charged with any crime” and has contested the effort to seize his assets.
Rogers alleged that the Coffey Family Medical Clinic had the hallmarks of a “pill mill,” such as patients traveling long distances — bypassing other providers — and paying cash to get prescriptions; one person paying for others to see a doctor; and not providing real physical examinations.
Employees of the clinic told investigators that Coffey left pre-signed prescriptions to give to people when he was not in the office, Rogers said.
If the clinic ran out of the pre-signed prescriptions, an employee would take blank prescriptions to Coffey at his farm, where he would sign them, according to the affidavit.
One person who had worked at two of Coffey’s clinics said the doctor had given instructions not to let authorities see patient records.
Coffey instructed employees that if DEA officers came to his office when he wasn’t there, they were to call him and he would “sneak in the back door,” Rogers said.
The affidavit said Coffey operated the clinic with his sons Brandon and Alex.
They also operated clinics that provided buprenorphine, commonly known as Suboxone, to clients, according to Rogers’ affidavit.
The drug is used to keep down symptoms of withdrawal among people trying to beat an addiction to opioids, but people also sell it illegally.
Police also believe Coffey and his sons operated the Suboxone clinics improperly.
An undercover officer went to Coffey Family Medical Clinic four times beginning in the summer of 2017 and received prescriptions for hydrocodone pain pills even though providers there didn’t do a legitimate physical examination, Rogers said.
The undercover agent allegedly saw a physician assistant the first time, and either Bruce or Brandon Coffey on three other visits.
Bruce Coffey spent only about 20 seconds with the undercover agent on one visit, Rogers said.
On one visit, the undercover officer overheard a suspected drug dealer talking to several other patients about what to say to providers at the clinic to get the desired prescriptions, according to the affidavit.
The officer also saw people come out of a pharmacy next door to the clinic — in which Coffey had an interest — and give their bags of medication to a suspected drug trafficker, Rogers said.
The affidavit noted that one problem in drug diversion is a drug dealer paying for other people to go to a clinic and get prescriptions in order to amass a supply of pills.
A clinic employee told investigators the clinic sometimes saw 200 patients a day. The investigation showed people paid $250 cash for their initial visit and $88 for subsequent visits, Rogers said.
Police believe the clinic “operates to make money by writing illegitimate prescriptions to high volumes of patients while trying to maintain the appearance of a legitimate practice,” Rogers said in his sworn statement.
“In cases involving the large-scale diversion of pharmaceuticals, unethical and illegal acts on the part of practitioners is essential,” Rogers said. “I am aware that these practitioners usually operate from behind the veil of a medical practice whose purpose purports to be the treatment of chronic pain, otherwise known as “pain clinics.”
Records show that Coffey prescribed more than 4.9 million pills between January 2010 and March 2018, Rogers said.
A prosecutor argued in the forfeiture motion that the cash and cars at issue in the case either facilitated or resulted from illegal drug distribution and money laundering.
The U.S. Marshal’s Service has held the property since it was confiscated more than a year ago.
The government was under a deadline to file the forfeiture request by Dec. 23.
A prosecutor sought a stay the same day, saying that allowing the civil forfeiture to go forward could compromise the criminal investigation.
The government “is pursuing a criminal investigation” of Coffey, the Coffey Family Medical Clinic and affiliates, the motion said.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Wier granted the stay on Dec. 30.
Coffey still practices medicine, but a Tennessee newspaper reported that Coffey Family Medical Clinic closed in August after federal prosecutors filed accusations of millions of dollars in health fraud against a South Carolina company, Oaktree Medical Centre PC, that managed the clinic.
Rogers’ affidavit said a man named Daniel McCollum started operating Coffey’s clinic in Tennessee with Coffey in 2016.
The federal complaint in South Carolina identified McCollum as head of Oaktree, which operates pain clinics.
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 3:53 PM.
