But it was curious, Pennington thought. In over six months of watching this daily parade, he had seen only one patient on crutches. In exchange, prosecutors dropped 46 counts of drug trafficking against him. OxyContin was prescribed in half the cases for which Lilly was charged, and nationwide, law enforcement officials say, illegal prescription of the drug is escalating. Statistics are hard to come by, but local law enforcement officials say that OxyContin abuse is reaching near-epidemic levels in rural areas such as northern Maine and western Virginia.
Demand is driven by addiction and poverty.
But it would not exist, prosecutors say, without doctors willing to write bogus prescriptions. Doctors, they say, like Jeff Lilly. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Cincinnati Medical School, Lilly had come to Portsmouth well recommended. But, as is often the case in areas underserved by medical professionals, the local hospital was willing to overlook some glaring problems in his past. In the early 1990s, while a surgeon at Pioneer Valley Hospital in Salt Lake City, Lilly settled at least one large malpractice lawsuit and was the subject of seven internal investigations, which resulted in his resignation in 1992.