Guilty: St. Augustine doctor operated pill clinic 'like a candy shop' and at times for sex
A St. Augustine doctor was convicted of 19 counts of drug trafficking and obstruction of justice following a weeklong trial in his federal pill mill case that also involved sexual favors.
Dr. Scott Andrew Hollington is accused of overprescribing drugs at his Sawgrass Health clinic and sexually exploiting female patients by trading pills for sex.
The doctor, who continues to practice, was released pending formal sentencing that will occur within 90 days.
The trial included a parade of undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents who testified they were prescribed a raft of stimulants, sedatives and other addictive drugs without demonstrating any legitimate medical need or undergoing even basic medical evaluations.
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The undercover visits were secretly recorded and show Hollington saying he didn’t care about the results of legally required drug tests. On one occasion, he didn’t require an agent to provide a urine sample. On another, the agent simply filled the sample cup with tap water from the bathroom sink, and Hollington accepted it.
Jurors also heard from four women who say Hollington either extorted, suggested or attempted to force sexual acts on them in exchange for prescription drugs.
“That’s not the practice of medicine,” government expert witness Dr. Gene Kennedy testified. “This is something else ... It’s a violation of everything you would expect in the use of normal medical practice.”
Hollington did not put on a defense; his attorney called no witnesses, and Hollington did not testify. However, his attorney Curtis Falgatter argued the doctor was helping addicts obtain untainted drugs legally rather than buying potentially lethal versions off the street.
“If they are addicts, every one of these prescriptions are legitimate ones for them,” he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirwinn Mike disputed that account. He reminded jurors of one recorded encounter in which an undercover agent said he used cocaine. Hollington replied that he would prescribe him the stimulant Adderall.
“It is not FDA-approved for that, OK?” Hollington said. “Just so you know, OK? Your nurse practitioner will go through the [ADHD diagnosis] crap with you, because we cannot give it to you for cocaine, even though really that’s what we’d be doing.”
Regarding sex with patients, Falgatter said it was not defensible. “No one in this courtroom is going to say that was right. Not me, not Mr. Hollington.” But Falgatter noted the sexual acts were not criminally charged.
“This case is not about a sex charge, it’s not about that. It’s a drug case.”
Mike told jurors the doctor’s sexual behavior was just additional proof that the clinic was not a legitimate operation.
“It’s like a candy shop: You go in you get what you want,” he told jurors. He compared Hollington’s loose prescribing methods to “a charcuterie board."
“That’s not care,” Mike said. “That’s just handing out drugs. You’ve just got a prescription pad, that’s all.”
Jurors also heard from several former nurses in Hollington’s St. Augustine clinic, two of whom are unindicted co-conspirators. One testified that after watching a Netflix documentary, she began to worry she was working in a pill mill.
Prosecutors asked that Hollington be taken into custody immediately after the verdict, but U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan said he would allow him to remain out of jail pending a hearing on the government's request.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: St. Augustine Dr. Scott Hollington guilty in pill mill case
