Former HOPE Clinic employee enters guilty plea

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A former Parkersburg doctor has entered a guilty plea related to distributing pills outside of legitimate medical purposes.

Paul Burke, 68, worked at the HOPE Clinic, a chronic pain facility in Charleston, between April 2014 and September 2014. Burke told officials he was recruited to work at the HOPE Clinic despite primarily being an emergency room doctor and surgeon with little experience with chronic pain patients. Burke also had no training in prescribing schedule II narcotics for chronic pain.

Burke admitted some customers were not receiving properly evaluations before being prescribed opioids, and records were poorly kept. He also said many patients came from outside of the state, and most people paid in cash. Burke would receive bonuses based on the number of paying customers.

Burke pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances not for legitimate medical purposes in the usual course of professional medical practice and beyond the bounds of medical practice. He faces up to five years in prison. His sentencing date is scheduled for Jan. 30.





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