Ohio Doctor Accused Of Peddling Opioids, Including Oxycodone

CLEVELAND — A Mahoning County doctor has been charged with illegally giving prescriptions for opioids. Dr. Martin Escobar was taken into custody on Thursday by law enforcement, the FBI announced.

Escobar, 56, from Youngstown, faces charges for illegally distributing controlled substances and committing healthcare fraud. He had offices in Lake Milton, a town in central Mahoning County.

An FBI spokesperson said Escobar was taken into custody on Thursday morning at his home, without incident. He is scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Thursday afternoon.

From at least January 2018 to May 2019, Escobar prescribed oxycodone, hydrocodone and other substances to people, without a legitimate medical reason for issuing those prescriptions. He would make these prescriptions "outside the usual course of professional practice," according to the criminal complaint filed against Escobar.

The complaint says Escobar would write false diagnoses to prescribe the substances, would falsify patient pain levels in medical charts and would ignore the results of a patients' urine drug screen.

Escobar would test the urine of his patients for controlled substances and would then bill the government for these tests, the complaint added. After getting the results, Escobar would ignore the results, which would indicate the absence of prescribed drugs in the urine. That meant patients were possibly selling the substances, and not using them as prescribed, the complaint said.

The DEA, the FBI, the United States Health and Human Services - Office of Inspector General, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, and the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy led the investigation into Escobar.