An Ohio physician was sentenced today to seven years in prison for unlawfully distributing opioids from his clinic.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Thomas Romano, 74, of Wheeling, West Virginia, owned and operated a self-named pain management clinic in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, to which individuals traveled hundreds of miles to obtain prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances. The prescriptions Romano issued for opioids and other controlled substances greatly exceeded recommended dosages and were in dangerous, life-threatening combinations that fueled the addiction of the individuals to whom he prescribed. Between October 2014 and September 2019, Romano prescribed over 137,000 pills, including opioids, benzodiazepines, and muscle relaxants, to nine individuals.
A federal jury convicted Romano in September 2023 of 24 counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances in violation of the Controlled Substances Act.
Principal Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker for the Southern District of Ohio; Special Agent in Charge Orville O. Greene of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Detroit Field Division; Special Agent in Charge J. William Rivers of the FBI Cincinnati Field Office; and Special Agent in Charge Mario M. Pinto of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) made the announcement.
The DEA, FBI, HHS-OIG, Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, and Ohio Board of Pharmacy investigated this case.
Trial Attorneys Devon Helfmeyer and Danielle Sakowski and Counsel Alexis Gregorian of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case.