CHICAGO — An administrative assistant at a suburban Chicago medical practice has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for fraudulently writing opioid prescriptions to an acquaintance.
Amanda Biesiada worked as an administrative assistant at Hinsdale Orthopaedics, a medical practice in Westmont, Illinois. Biesiada was not a licensed physician and could not lawfully prescribe medications without the direction and approval of licensed doctors.
From 2017 to 2019, Biesiada fraudulently wrote 85 prescriptions to the acquaintance for hydrocodone, oxycodone, and other controlled substances. Biesiada purported to write the prescriptions on behalf of six Hinsdale Orthopaedics health care providers. In reality, the providers did not direct or approve the prescriptions. Biesiada attempted to conceal the fraudulent prescriptions by marking them as having been “filed in error” in the Hinsdale Orthopaedics prescription system. Hinsdale Orthopaedics is a Divsion of the Illinois Bone & Joint Institute.
Biesiada, 39, of Alsip, Illinois, pleaded guilty last year to one count of knowingly and intentionally dispensing controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose. U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr., on Thursday sentenced Biesiada to a year and a day in federal prison.
The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Robert J. Bell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“The opioid epidemic has devastated the lives of countless individuals through addiction and overdose,” Assistant U.S. Attorney G. David Rojas argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “Defendant contributed to this national crisis by helping make opiates available to an individual who otherwise would not and should not have had access to them.”
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