Doctor pleads guilty to prescribing drugs without a medical need

A pain doctor with offices outside New Castle and in Ohio admitted Wednesday that he prescribed narcotics to two patients with no medical need for them.

Thomas Ranieri, 66, who lives in New Castle but is relocating to Ohio, pleaded guilty in federal court in Pittsburgh to multiple counts of distributing drugs outside the course of professional practice.

U. S. District Judge David Cercone said he’ll sentence Dr. Ranieri in January.

Prosecutors said the doctor prescribed oxycodone, fentanyl and Opana to two patients who were clearly abusing the drugs in 2013. A report by a government expert on Dr. Ranieri’s conduct concluded that it was the “height of irresponsibility” to prescribe the drugs with no treatment plan and no monitoring of the patients, identified in court records only as patients A and B.

Dr. Ranieri said nothing in court except to answer the judge’s questions about his guilt. Asked if the government’s recitation of his conduct was accurate, he said “yes.”

Assistant U. S. Attorney Stephanie Haines said Dr. Ranieri, an anesthesiologist and pain doctor with clinics in Columbus, Youngstown and suburban New Castle, first came to the attention of federal agents during their investigation of a kickback scheme at Universal Oral Fluid Laboratories in Greensburg.

Dr. Ranieri was not charged in connection with that probe, but agents searched his various offices and identified patients at Allied Pain Treatment Center in Neshannock who were receiving narcotics for no medical purpose.

Following an investigation by the FBI, Health and Human Services, the IRS and the state attorney general’s Medicaid fraud unit, a federal grand jury indicted him on 26 counts in December 2017 based on his conduct in 2013.

Judge Cercone allowed Dr. Ranieri to remain free on bond pending sentencing.