Doctor set up ‘pill mill’ and sold opioids near NC elementary school, feds say
A doctor who ran a clinic in North Carolina was sentenced to 78 months in prison after pleading guilty to distributing opioids to patients for cash, federal authorities said.
The business in Columbus County drew people from across the state and elsewhere and was right next to an elementary school, federal authorities said.
John Whan Kim, 75, had worked as a doctor in North Carolina since 2002, according to a criminal complaint. He was employed with a medical facility until 2017, when he was advised to resign after an evaluation of his documentation and “prescribing patterns of controlled substances,” the complaint said.
Months after he resigned, Kim opened his own clinic in Tabor City, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina.
Kim’s clinic soon became a “pill mill,” prosecutors said in the release.
“Kim unlawfully and improperly prescribed opioids and other controlled substances to ‘patients’ who paid $200 cash at each appointment,” the release said.
The Columbus County Sheriff’s Office learned of the clinic and determined in early 2018 that Kim was writing prescriptions “for no legitimate medical purpose.” Authorities later worked with a confidential source to continue their investigation into Kim’s practice. The doctor was accused of selling the source oxycodone, OxyContin and Alprazolam for $200 in cash in June 2018, according to court documents.
Federal authorities say that he gave the source additional opioids for the person’s father, despite having never met the father, the complaint said.
“Kim wrote controlled substance prescriptions to virtually every patient he saw, often despite not having a patient’s prior medical records, not conducting a real physical examination or considering alternative treatments, and often despite having evidence of patient misuse and diversion,” prosecutors said in the release.
The clinic was next to an elementary school, according to the sentencing memorandum, which forced the school to “restrict outdoor activity due to safety concerns stemming from the adjacent clinic.”
Following the Columbus County Sheriff’s investigation, authorities executed a search warrant on Kim’s clinic and his home, according to the release. Officials found “no evidence that Kim was providing real medical care.”
Kim pleaded guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully distribute a quantity of oxycodone, hydrocodone, methadone, and marijuana in December, according to prosecutors. His coworker in the clinic, Tammy Thomson, was charged with violating federal drug trafficking laws and pleaded guilty to multiple counts, the release said.
“The defendant abused his position as a doctor to illegally distribute opioids, jeopardizing the safety of the community and the school adjacent to his office,” Michael Easley, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, said in the release.
Kim was required to give up his medical license and is banned from practicing medicine again, according to federal authorities.
McClatchy News reached out to Kim’s attorney for comment and did not receive an immediate response.
Tabor City is about 145 miles south of Raleigh.
This story was originally published April 11, 2022 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Doctor set up ‘pill mill’ and sold opioids near NC elementary school, feds say."
