Doctor Surrenders Controlled Substances Prescription License

By Andrew Gorosko

A now-retired local doctor, whose Mt Pleasant Road commercial real estate is the target of a federal forfeiture action, has surrendered his state license to prescribe controlled substances, including narcotics, which he had allegedly prescribed with insufficient medical review, to confidential informants and undercover law enforcement agents, who were conducting a long-term investigation into his drug prescription practices.

Following a request for information under the state Freedom of Information Act, the Drug Control Division of the state Department of Consumer Protection (DCP), disclosed that Donald T. Evans, MD, has surrendered his Connecticut controlled substances certificate to the DCP under the terms of a surrender agreement that was approved by DCP Commissioner Jerry Farrell, Jr, on March 23. The doctor had endorsed the agreement on March 12.

The agreement also requires Dr Evans to dispose of stocks of controlled substances as required by state law.

In a pending civil lawsuit, the federal government is seeking to have Dr Evans forfeit his medical office property at 115 Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6), as a penalty for the doctor’s alleged illegal prescription of narcotic drugs in violation of the US Controlled Substances Act.

In the lawsuit filed on March 9 in US District Court, Assistant US Attorney David X. Sullivan states that that the legal action is underway because the medical office property “was used or intended to be used in any manner or part to commit or to facilitate the commission of a violation of the [US] Controlled Substances Act.” The property is appraised at more than $500,000, according to the legal papers.

The case has been assigned to Judge Stefan R. Underhill at the US Courthouse in Bridgeport. A court date has not yet been set. 

Town police participated in the undercover investigation of the doctor’s drug prescription practices, as did the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the state’s Division of Drug Control, and the state Department of Public Health (DPH).

The doctor retains his medical license, which is scheduled to expire on January 31, 2008, according to a DPH spokesman. That license allows a doctor to prescribe certain basic drugs.

The state Division of Drug Control declined to provide any information on the case, other than the brief surrender agreement on the controlled substances prescription license.

DEA spokesman Anthony Pettigrew declined to comment on the pending legal action against Dr Evans. Mr Pettigrew declined to say whether criminal charges would be filed against the doctor.

US Department of Justice spokesman Thomas Carson declined to comment on whether the federal lawsuit pending against the doctor prompted him to surrender his state controlled substances prescription license.

Dr Evans, 71, retired on March 17, after 40 years of practicing medicine locally. He has worked as a general practitioner, an assistant state medical examiner, and a physician for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Dr Evans has rejected allegations made in the federal lawsuit, saying that he has done nothing wrong. The allegations amount to malicious attacks, he has said.

“In the summer of 2005, law enforcement [officials] began investigating allegations that Dr Donald T. Evans, who is licensed by the State of Connecticut Department of Health to practice medicine, and is further licensed to prescribe controlled and/or narcotic substances to his patients, was engaged through his medical practice located at 115 Mt Pleasant Road, Route 6, Newtown, Connecticut, in numerous acts of illegally prescribing controlled and/or narcotic substances during the course of his practice,” the suit alleges.

“Dr Evans has been the focus of complaints to the [state] Drug Control Division… [and] from a Newtown area physician, local pharmacists, patients, the families of patients, and local law enforcement,” it adds.

Law enforcement officials received complaints about, or information from, certain patients to whom Dr Evans prescribed those substances, it states. Also, law enforcement officials conducted recent investigations linked to drugs prescribed by Dr Evans, according to the civil suit.

“As a response to these complaints, law enforcement began an investigation upon Dr Evans and his medical practice, which involved infiltrating Dr Evans’ practice with reliable and confidential informants and law enforcement [agents] posing as patients,” the lawsuit states.

“He was prescribing drugs too often, too fast, without proper medical examinations,” Police Chief Michael Kehoe has said. Consequently, the several government agencies decided to conduct a collaborative investigation, he said. Town police had received complaints about the doctor, according to the police chief.

The legal action alleges numerous instances of unnamed confidential informants and undercover law enforcement agents seeking and obtaining from the doctor prescriptions for potent drugs without first receiving sufficient medical review.