Herald-Leader staff report December 10, 2014

A Michigan doctor has been sentenced to five years in prison after admitting he conspired to distribute large amounts of pain pills in Eastern Kentucky. Anthony Jungho Choe agreed as part of his plea deal to give up his medical license and never practice again. U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar made lifetime parole supervision a part of Choe’s sentence.

Choe worked in Chelsea, Mich. People who got prescriptions from him brokered thousands of pills to drug dealers in Eastern Kentucky from around the end of 2009 through October 2012, according to court records.

Choe admitted he prescribed pills without a legitimate medical reason; that he didn’t really examine the drug runners; and that it was “reasonably foreseeable” the pills were being abused or sold, according to his plea agreement.