Fentanyl cash kickbacks convict to appeal – News – fosters.com

CONCORD — Four days after he was sentenced to a 4-year prison sentence, a former physician assistant, who illicitly prescribed an addictive fentanyl spray for cash kickbacks, filed notice with the U. S. District Court that he intends to appeal.

Christopher Clough, 45, of Dover, was sentenced June 3 to four years in prison for accepting kickbacks from drug maker Insys for illicitly prescribing its opioid spray Subsys and taking payments for 40 “sham” speaker events at high-end restaurants. Clough was a physician assistant for PainCare of New Hampshire in Somersworth where, the U.S. attorney’s office reported, he wrote nearly 750 Subsys prescriptions, worth about $8 million, with Medicare and Tricare paying $2.7 million of it. A sentencing memo reports patients did not know the risks associated with Subsys and assumed Clough was prescribing it in good faith as their medical provider.

On Friday, through attorney Patrick Richard, Clough filed notice with the federal court of his intent to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The notice states he has been “aggrieved” by rulings at the trial level and in the court’s “judgement in sentencing.”

The U.S. attorney’s office had sought a 63-month sentence and Clough had petitioned the federal court for a 12-month sentence. Judge Joseph Laplante on Monday imposed a 4-year sentence and waived a fine due to Clough’s “inability to pay,” court records show. The judge also ordered a future hearing be held for the purposes of restitution and ordered Clough be held in custody.

Clough was found guilty after a December trial when U. S. Attorney Scott Murray said Clough, “often prescribed the drug for patients who did not have breakthrough cancer pain (as required by law). He often started patients on high doses of the addictive fentanyl spray and rebuffed patients and their family members who stated that they no longer wanted the drug.”

In a sentencing memo, Murray’s office wrote that Clough “peddled opioids for the same reason as any other drug dealer – greed.”

“But in an important respect, the defendant’s conduct is more egregious than the street dealer; unlike the street dealer, the defendant had effectively a fiduciary relationship with those to whom he delivered the drugs in which he was required to act only their best interest,” the memo states.