Chicago doctor sentenced to 4 life terms
Posted: February 14, 2012 at 2:43 p.m.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Chicago doctor who prosecutors said dispensed more of the powerful painkiller oxycodone from 2003 to 2005 than any other physician in the country was sentenced Tuesday to four life terms in the overdose deaths of four patients.
Dr. Paul Volkman made weekly trips from Chicago to three locations in Portsmouth in southern Ohio and one in Chillicothe in central Ohio before federal investigators shut down the operations in 2006, prosecutors said. He was sentenced in federal court in Cincinnati.
The 64-year-old Volkman said he acted at all times as a doctor, not a drug dealer.
Volkman was also handed prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years on 13 other counts related to drug trafficking. He received five years for possessing a weapon while participating in drug trafficking.
This undated file photo released by the U.S. Marshals Service shows Dr. Paul Volkman, of Chicago.
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