TAYLOR, Mich. (WXYZ) — On Tuesday, Taylor police, Michigan State Police and the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs raided the clinic and mansion of a doctor who they say is a major pill trafficker throughout Michigan and Ohio.
The 78-year-old Bloomfield Hills doctor was arrested as his neurology clinic was being raided. The clinic is located on Telegraph Road, just north of Eureka Road in Taylor.
His wife was home as their Bloomfield Hills mansion was raided shortly after.
Taylor police say they've been investigating this doctor for four years and that he is one of the worst offenders of pill trafficking in the state. 7 News Detroit is not saying his name until he has been formally charged.
The lead detective on the case, Phillip Wengrowski, said the doctor was pushing, "high-level pain pills, hydrocortisone, acetaminophen, oxycodone, Norcos."
Wengrowski said the doctor wrote prescriptions without a legitimate medical reason, illegally prescribed individuals high-level pain pills, falsified medical records and sent billing to insurance companies that were illegitimate.
"It all starts here. It starts with a doctor who is prescribing people when he has no legitimate reason to do so," Wengrowski said. "The pills make their way onto the street and from there, they get into the hands of people that don’t medically need them and they just get sold and trafficked into narcotics."
7 News Detroit spoke to multiple of the doctor's patients. Some like long-term patient Christy Granger were surprised to hear the allegations.
"I was actually really shocked because I didn’t really think he was that kind of doctor," she said.
Many others like former patient Autum Allen were not shocked.
"Upon the first meeting of him, he didn’t really examine me," Allen shared. "He just kind of went off what I said and automatically prescribed me with Topamax for my headache issue, which I told him I did not want because I didn’t hear good things about."
Allen said that the doctor tried to push medicine on her that she didn't want by making up a nickname for it.
"Calling it 'tropacandy,'" which confused me into thinking that it was something different so that he could prescribe me the same thing."
Allen said the doctor also tried to push medicine on her 7-year-old daughter who wasn't even a patient.
She said that months later, she sought a second opinion from a different doctor and was told the medicine pushed on her was likely making her headaches worse.
"It’s still not 100% better, but it is getting a little bit better," Allen said.
Although Allen says she didn't want the pills, the Taylor police chief said people across Michigan and Ohio purposely went to the doctor for narcotics.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, thousands of people die from drug overdoses every year in Michigan alone.
"We believe this doctor played a big role into fueling that fire," Taylor Police Chief John Blair said.
