Police sgt, EX-LGH worker face drug charges

A former physician’s assistant at Lowell General Hospital and a veteran Tyngsboro Police sergeant are both facing criminal charges because the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office says the sergeant obtained 54 illegally prescribed prescriptions from a man who was not his doctor.

John Mcdonald, 49, no longer works at Lowell General Hospital, according to a hospital spokesman. Sgt. Mark Bourque is on Bourque paid administrative leave as a result of the allegations, according to Tyngsboro Police Chief Rich Howe.

Mcdonald is facing charges of distribution of a Class B substance and conspiracy to provide controlled substance prescriptions, according to a press release.

Bourque is charged with conspiracy to violate drug laws, according to a press release.

Both men were released on personal recognizance at their arraignments last week before Judge Stacey Fortes, according to Meghan Kelly, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Marian Ryan.

Kelly wrote in a press release that the U.S. Division of Homeland Security and Preparedness, Narcotics Section, was notified in April that Mcdonald was suspected of writing prescriptions for Bourque even though Bourque was not one of his patients.

Mcdonald, who at the time was an orthopedic physician’s assistant, was allowed to write prescriptions, but only with authorization from a supervising physician, and only while maintaining appropriate records, according to the DA’S office.

But an investigation determined Mcdonald wrote 54 controlled substance prescriptions for Bourque even though he was not one of Mcdonald’s patients, according to a press release from