Ex-Little Rock medical clinic manager draws 2-year sentence in 'pill mill' case

A man who moved his family to Little Rock from the West Coast to start a promising career managing a new medical clinic will soon be seeing his family only when they visit him in federal prison.

ADVERTISEMENT

More headlines

That's because the job he accepted turned out to be at a "pill mill," where, according to testimony at a trial last month, patients recruited by drug dealers showed up in droves to complain about false ailments that guaranteed them prescriptions for painkillers and anti-anxiety medication that could easily be sold on the street at marked-up prices.

Christopher Manson, 32, testified at the trial that he had never worked at a medical facility before he took the job offered by Stanley James, who operated similar clinics in Dallas and, according to some former employees, hid from them that he was doing anything illegal, so that they would lend the operation an air of legitimacy.

Manson, who pleaded guilty to a hydrocodone conspiracy charge before the trial began, was sentenced Wednesday morning to two years in federal prison. He faced 30 to 37 months, or 21/2 to just over three years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, but prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced below the suggested range in exchange for his truthful testimony.

While U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. agreed, he didn't go as far as Manson's attorney, Mark Hampton of Little Rock, had asked. Hampton sought a nonprison sentence, arguing Manson had never before been charged with a crime and that he is the only income-producing parent of three children.

Manson and his wife, Delisha, have a 10-year-old son and a 11/2-year-old daughter, and for several years have also been raising a niece who is now 15, Hampton said. The youngest child has a seizure disorder, which is why Manson's wife decided to be a stay-at-home mom and full-time caretaker, he said.

Manson acknowledged at the trial that he gradually became aware his employer, the Artex Medical Clinic on Hermitage Road, wasn't legitimate because of the increasing refusals of area pharmacies to fill prescriptions issued by the clinic. Then the clinic closed Oct. 6, 2014, only a few months after it opened.

When the KJ Medical Clinic opened in the same location in November 2014, Manson said John Christopher Ware, who had been an owner of Artex, assured him that it would be a family practice clinic and would be operated differently than Artex had been.

In reality, he said, very little changed, but he felt he had "no option" but to continue working there, after moving his family to Little Rock from California and Nevada, and suddenly being unemployed when Artex closed.

Federal agents raided the KJ Medical Clinic in May 2015, arresting employees and shutting it down for good.

Moody agreed to recommend to the federal Bureau of Prisons that Manson serve his time at a facility near Orange County, Calif., to make it easier for his family to visit. He ordered Manson to serve three years' probation after his release.

In Texas, James is to be sentenced Dec. 15 on a conspiracy charge, while Ware faces a Nov. 28 jury trial on multiple charges.

In the Little Rock "pill mill" trial, a doctor and a physician's assistant were acquitted, while jurors convicted a nurse practitioner, Kristen Raines, who is awaiting sentencing.

Metro on 09/29/2016

Upcoming Events