Kennebunk doctor convicted on multiple counts of illegally distributing opioids

KENNEBUNK, Maine — A Kennebunk doctor charged with overprescribing opioids, including oxycodone, hydromorphone, and fentanyl, was found guilty of those crimes Friday.

Dr. Merideth Norris, 53, of Kennebunk, was convicted by a federal jury of 15 counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances.

Norris could face as many as 300 years in prison if the maximum sentence is handed down, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Norris, who operates Graceful Recovery, an addiction treatment center in Kennebunk, was arrested in October of 2022.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Norris distributed controlled substances to patients at her practice without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the usual course of professional practice. The counts against her covered a period from Oct. 21, 2021, through July 18, 2022.

“Norris prescribed controlled substances despite the fact that some of these patients suffered from opioid use disorder, tested positive for addictive substances that were not prescribed to them, or appeared to be diverting the drugs into the community,” the DOJ stated in a press release.

According to the DOJ, Norris was warned on numerous occasions about her prescribing practices. Walmart, for instance, refused to fill prescriptions she wrote after its pharmacy grew concerned that she was overprescribing. The supercenter issued a “central block,” or a nationwide ban, on any prescriptions that Norris wrote.

Norris also received letters of concern from the insurer of one of her patients.

“When asked by Maine’s Board of Osteopathic Licensure to justify her prescribing, Norris submitted an incomplete patient file to the board, and otherwise deceived the board about her prescribing practices,” the DOJ added.

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Case was first for New England Prescription Opioid Strike Force

Norris’s arrest made a bit of history in law enforcement’s efforts to combat the opioid crisis, as it was the first one made by the New England Prescription Opioid Strike Force. The strike force was launched in the summer of 2022 to combat the illegal prescribing of drugs during the opioid epidemic in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

According to the 2022 affidavit filed by Special Agent Dale Wengler, the case against Norris began to take shape when Walmart stopped filling out her prescriptions.

In the affidavit, Wengler cited Medicare statistics showing Norris with the highest rate of prescribing opioids per patient in the State of Maine. Nationally, Norris was in the 99th percentile when it came to the amounts of daily doses of opioids that she prescribed for patients.

“The Medicare data indicates that Norris is in the 95th percentile for a number of outlier behaviors that are indicative of illegal prescribing,” Wengler wrote.

According to Wengler, 22 of Norris’ patients died between January 2018 and June 2022. The patients were covered by Medicaid and had an average age of 49. During the same time frame, 9 more of Norris’ patients died. These individuals were covered by Medicare and averaged 68 years old, according to the affidavit.

Wengler said his investigation team had received incident reports and medical examiner reports for at least 7 of Norris’ patients whose primary cause of death was an overdose.

The affidavit said data revealed that Norris prescribed controlled substances to multiple patients who died of overdoses within 45 days of receiving prescriptions from her.

The investigation focused on oxycodone, methadone, hydromorphone, diazepam, clonazepam and dextroamphetamine prescribed to three patients, according to court records.

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Dr. Merideth Norris to be sentenced

A federal district court judge will determine how to sentence Norris after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, the DOJ reported.

Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Boston-based Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services all investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Thomas Campbell and Danielle Sakowski of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case with assistance from Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Scott for the District of Maine.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Maine doctor convicted of unlawfully distributing opioids