Former New Castle doctor gets probation for illegal prescriptions

A pain doctor who practiced outside New Castle and in two Ohio cities was sentenced Thursday to federal probation for illegally prescribing narcotics to two drug addicts for no medical reason.

U.S. District Judge David Cercone imposed a term of two years on Thomas Ranieri, 68, of New Castle. The first year will be served on home detention, the judge ruled.

Ranieri had pleaded guilty in 2019 to multiple counts of distribution of drugs outside the course of professional practice.

He is among 27 medical professionals indicted in this district in recent years, among the highest totals in the U.S.; 23 of those cases have so far resulted in guilty pleas or convictions.

Federal agents said Ranieri, an anesthesiologist with pain clinics in Columbus, Youngstown and New Castle, prescribed oxycodone, fentanyl and oxymorphone to two patients who were obviously abusing drugs in 2013. An expert hired by the government described Ranieri’s conduct as the “height of irresponsibility.”

Agents first learned of him during an investigation of a kickback scheme at Universal Oral Fluid Laboratories in Greensburg. He wasn’t charged in that case, but agents searched his offices and identified patients at his Neshannock clinic, Allies Pain Treatment Center, who were receiving narcotics for no medical purpose.

A federal grand jury indicted him in 2017.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Olshan said Ranieri “abdicated his responsibility as a physician when he prescribed powerful narcotic drugs to two of his patients” whom he knew were addicts. In all, he prescribed 1,700 doses of oxycodone, fentanyl and oxymorphone.

“This conduct is a stunning betrayal of the defendant’s oath as a physician and more broadly the trust the community places in medical practitioners,” Mr. Olshan said in sentencing papers. “The defendant is a highly educated professional, who maintained a series of medical practices for many years. He cannot claim ignorance of the law as it relates to dispensing practices. He knew what he was doing was wrong the entire time he was doing it.”

Ranieri’s Cleveland lawyer, Richard Blake, said his client is a man of deep faith “whose primary purpose in life has been to help others.”

Mr. Blake said Ranieri suffered two herniated discs in the 1990s and got hooked on opiates and eventually developed a dependence on Xanax and Valium. He went through substance abuse treatment and decided to dedicate himself to helping others wean off drugs.

He started working in anesthesia in State College, Pa., and became the manager of a pain clinic there, eventually running his own practice. When his contract was not renewed in 2005, he moved to Jameson Hospital in New Castle as an anesthesiologist. But his contract there was not renewed either because the hospital had too many anesthesiologists, his lawyer said.

He eventually connected with a pain doctor in Youngstown who wanted someone to take over for him. Ranieri bought the practice with a $ 900,000 Small Business Association loan, Mr. Blake said.

He saw patients in Youngstown and at Jameson Hospital and eventually opened another office in Pittsburgh that required him to buy medical equipment. Under financial pressure, he also bought a pain practice in Columbus to bring in more income. He hired his son but was unable to retain competent staff.

Soon, Mr. Blake said, “he was in over his head.”

At that point, the doctor in Pittsburgh from whom he rented his office space introduced him to the principles at Universal Oral Fluid, who pitched him their system for performing toxicology screens for maintaining patient compliance, Mr. Blake said. It was during that time that he prescribed the illegal drugs to the two patients.

“Dr. Ranieri had become overwhelmed with maintaining three offices that were necessary to service the debts he had accumulated and was unable to train and maintain a staff necessary to ensure required patient compliance,” Mr. Blake said. “It is important to note that Dr. Ranieri did not operate a ‘pill mill’ commonly referenced now in connection with the opioid epidemic nor has the government accused him of doing so.”

In a statement to the judge, Ranieri said he takes full responsibility for what he did but said he allowed himself to become financially strained and “stretched too thin” to give patients his full attention.

“Unfortunately that caused me to commit offenses that run directly contrary to the mission of my career, which was to help people no longer be dependent on pain medications,” he said.