A Jackson nurse practitioner accused of prescribing opioids and dangerous drug combinations to patients in exchange for sex will now await his trial in jail.

Federal Judge John Daniel Breen ruled Monday that Jeffrey Young presents a danger to the community that no release conditions could address.

This decision overrides the ruling of federal magistrate, Jon A. York, who allowed Young to be released on bond in late April and continue practicing medicine at his GeneXis clinic in Jackson. Federal attorneys said Young was a “sexual predator” who should not have kept his nursing license following York’s ruling.

Young is accused of exchanging opioids and fentanyl patches for sex between 2014 and 2017 and faces multiple federal drug trafficking charges. Over an estimated three-year period, Young allegedly prescribed 1.4 million pills and 1,500 fentanyl patches without medical need.

‘Hiding behind the medical board’

Young was originally released in April under conditions already set by the Tennessee Department of Health after he settled charges against him from the state nursing board in November 2018. Those conditions allowed him to continue his practice with restrictions on what medications he can prescribe and oversight of his prescribing practices.

Attorney for the federal government Jason Knutson said Young was “hiding behind the medical board” and that his true pattern of practice was far more “insidious” than what the board’s investigation revealed.

“The only way you can stop him from being a sexual predator — and that is what he is — is to detain him,” Knutson said.

The federal government attorneys presented evidence that the state may not have had access to or knowledge of multiple text exchanges and videos that detail Young’s alleged sexual relationships with multiple patients for whom he was prescribing controlled drugs.

‘A sexual predator’

The attorneys for the federal government presented numerous sexually-charged Facebook messages between Young and five female patients, some of which included explicit photographs of Young and the women.

Young prescribed each of the women opiates or other controlled drugs. He prescribed benzodiazepines, a controlled schedule IV medication that he could still prescribe under the state’s conditions, to one of those women as recently as December of 2018.

John Chew, a special agent for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation who worked on an investigation into Young, testified that multiple former employees stated Young engaged in sexual activity with women in his medical office frequently — sometimes as many as three per day. The five women presented to the court Monday were to be taken as examples of a common practice, Knutson stated.

Young has also faced allegations of sexual assault, rape and domestic assault in the past, though none of these cases have yielded a conviction.

Breen found a video presented of Young apparently having sexual intercourse with a semi-conscious woman of particular concern, though federal agents have not been able to identify the woman and therefore have not been able to press charges related to the video.

“(Her) eyes were closed, (she) looked like she was not too cognizant of what was going on,” Breen said.

Threatening statements and prescribing habits

Breen said multiple factors led him to detain Young, including that he has “made statements and conducted himself in a threatening manner” and that many Facebook messages and texts presented to the court indicate Young has a “propensity for violence.”

Federal attorneys also argued that Young does not frequently check the Controlled Substance Monitoring Database (CSMD), which lists what drugs a patient has been prescribed from other health providers, to protect against drug abuse or a practice known as “doctor shopping.”

Young’s attorney Claiborne Ferguson stated that all of the evidence presented by the federal attorneys represented allegations but not proof of any illegal activity, and that many of the accusations were hearsay.

“(There is) nothing necessarily illegal about having sex with a patient,” Ferguson said.

He also contended that physicians are not required to check the CSMD record of every patient before issuing a prescription, and repeatedly opined that the allegations against Young were being exacerbated by Young’s enemies and ex-wife.

Ferguson said the video of Young having sex with the seemingly semi-conscious woman “may be unsavory to us, but it was not, at this point, (determined to be) anything illegal” as there was no proof it was not consensual.

Young will appear in court for a report date on August 14 at 9 a.m.

Reach Cassandra Stephenson at ckstephens@jacksonsun.com or at (731) 694-7261. Follow Cassandra on Twitter at @CStephenson731.

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