Chicago office manager sentenced after writing over 3,000 fake opioid prescriptions

CHICAGO — An office manager for a Chicago medical practice received one year in federal prison for writing over 3,000 fraudulent opioid prescriptions.

From 2009 to 2016, Rosemary Mays, 47, of South Holland, wrote the prescriptions for hydrocodone, oxycodone and other controlled substances.

Mays used a prescription pad belonging to a doctor and wrote the prescriptions in her own name and the names of dozens of unsuspecting friends and family members.

Mays and a co-conspirator, who was not named, then caused friends and family members to fill the fraudulent prescriptions at pharmacies in the area and provide the opioids to Mays and the co-conspirator.

After the prescriptions were filled, some of the controlled substances were sold throughout the Chicago area for a profit.

Mays attempted to conceal the scheme by creating fake patient profiles for the individuals whose names she put on the prescriptions to make it seem as if the individuals had been treated by a doctor.

She pleaded guilty to one county of conspiracy to dispense and distribute a controlled substance outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose or practitioner license.

Mays was sentenced to one year-and-a-day in federal prison.