Jeffrey Young wanted to give you a real look inside his clinic.

But maybe, just maybe, he showed too much.

Young, 43, a Tennessee nurse practitioner who called himself ‘Rock Doc’ and once piloted a reality show about his Jackson clinic, was indicted with federal drug trafficking charges this week, accused of trading drugs for sex.

OPIOID CRACKDOWN: What Tennessee doctors were charged? We’ve got a list.

The Department of Justice announced Young’s indictment Wednesday as part of a sweeping probe into nationwide over-prescribing that led to charges against 60 medical professionals. The announcement alleges that Young prescribed powerful and dangerous combinations of drugs “sometimes in exchanged for sexual favors.”

“Over approximately three years, (Young) allegedly prescribed approximately 500,000 hydrocodone pills, 300,000 oxycodone pills, 1,500 fentanyl patches, and more than 600,000 benzodiazepine pills,” the news release states.

The charges against Young are the culmination of an investigation that has lasted more than two years. DEA agents, dressed in head-to-toe camouflage tactical gear, seized computers and documents during a raid on Young’s clinic in January 2017.

This raided interrupted Young’s long-term goal of becoming a reality TV star. In 2016, Young was the central figure of a pilot for an envisioned reality show, “Rock Doc TV,” which revolved around his clinic in Jackson. It does not appear the pilot ever aired on television, but it remains available on YouTube.

In the pilot, Young leans into a rock ‘n’ roll image, wearing a backward baseball cap and sleeveless shirt that shows off his tattooed arms. A heavy metal soundtrack blasts throughout the show, and Young drinks a glass of red wine as he speaks to the camera.

“I may be a little untraditional,” he says during the pilot. “But don’t judge a book by its cover. Because one of the things my patients will tell you is that I’m very passionate about what I do and I’m very good at what I do. I work hard, but I play harder.”

Young was separately investigated by the Tennessee Department of Health, which accused him of overprescribing opioids and other addictive drugs. The case was settled last year when Young agreed to surrender his authority to prescribe powerful medications and put his nursing license on probation.

“He did not admit to having done anything wrong, but we stipulated that the board believed that he had,” said Claiborne Ferguson, Young’s attorney, in an interview with The Tennessean. “Jeff is as legit as they come.”

BOGUS PRESCRIPTIONS: Tennessee doctor who helped swindle the military out of $65M can keep her medical license

Brett Kelman is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 615-259-8287 or at brett.kelman@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter at @brettkelman.

 

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