It’s 40 years in prison for a former Virginia doctor that federal prosecutors say wrote
hundreds of illegal prescriptions in Pike County.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Joel Smithers was sentenced this week for writing prescriptions to help funnel pills into the county in 2015 that resulted in more than half a million opioids moving through the county including oxymorphone, oxycodone, and fentanyl.
Smithers was originally convicted in 2019, but after the US Supreme Court changed the law concerning jury instructions in cases involving illegal distribution of controlled substances by health care providers, Smithers got a new trial.
He was convicted again last December.