Chesapeake Doctor Sentenced for Illegally Dispensing Drugs
Apr 20, 2006
By John Hopkins,
The Virginian-Pilot
Dr. Sidney Loxley was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to seven years and three months in prison for illegally dispensing narcotics to patients.
Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. also sentenced the 63-year-old Chesapeake orthopedic surgeon to three years of supervised release and ordered him to take part in a substance abuse program. Loxley must forfeit more than $497,000 of his assets to the government. He has agreed to never practice medicine again.
Loxley and his wife, Carol, were the sole corporate officers for Orthopedic Surgeons Ltd., which operated at 501 N. Battlefield Blvd., at the intersection of Kempsville Road.
Chesapeake detectives initiated an investigation in March 2003 after a patient was found dead of an accidental overdose. Various prescription medicine bottles were at the scene.
Later in 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration began an undercover operation as well, sending in “patients’ for whom Loxley wrote prescriptions.
Loxley entered an Alford plea last December to a single count of conspiracy to dispense narcotics outside the bounds of legitimate medical practice. The Alford plea means Loxley does not admit guilt but acknowledges that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him.
Loxley had faced a multiple-count indictment, which included charges of drug trafficking that resulted in the deaths of four patients. Under that indictment, Loxley could have faced a lifetime in prison.
Court records alleged that the physician received nearly $650,000 in a 41-month period by prescribing narcotics such as morphine and OxyContin well above recommended practices.
The indictment alleged that the four patients died within days of receiving prescriptions for heavy doses of painkillers.
One of those patients was 43-year-old Karen Young Zanella, who died in March 2003 from a drug overdose.
Zanella’s husband and son left the federal court upset with the case’s outcome, which they called light and which will allow Loxley to keep $457,000 of his assets.
“I’m absolutely disgusted. He has no wife,’ Zanella’s son, Ryan Frederick, said pointing to Zanella’s husband. “I have no mother. My life will never be the same.’
Before sentencing, Judge Kelley heard from Judith Scarborough, whose 42-year-old son died from an overdose . David Scarborough had been one of Loxley’s patients, Judith Scarborough said.
She was the only person to give a victim impact statement in court. After her son overdosed in February 2003, Judith Scarborough said she called Loxley’s office.
“I made a request for him to stop issuing narcotics to Davey,’ she said.
He died four months later from a methadone overdose.
Twenty-five-year-old Lanae Sasse died from a lethal mixture of medicines in January 2003, said LeeAnna Sasse, her mother. Loxley had given her daughter a prescription the day before her death, LeeAnna Sasse said.
“He was only after money,’ she said. “He didn’t care about people at all.’
Loxley’s prison time doesn’t fit the crime, she said.
“I think he definitely got too short of a time . He, to me, was not a responsible doctor at all.’
Loxley, in a white dress shirt and jeans, stood and offered to give the Sasse family more than $9,000 in restitution.
“It has been, and is, a difficult case for all concerned,’ Charles Burke, Loxley’s attorney, said in court.
If the case had gone to trial , it would have been a three-month ordeal, a “battle of experts as to who did what,’ Burke said.
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