Federal grand jury hands down indictments against local doctor

Milan, 74, previously had been charged in a criminal complaint by the commander of the Greater Harrison Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force. The government then had 30 days to seek an indictment, resulting in the presentation at the federal courthouse in Berkeley County.

The indictment alleges wrongdoing from at least December 2011 to this June 27 in Bridgeport. It alleges Milan conspired with others “known and unknown to the Grand Jury.”

Substances listed in the indictment were oxycodone, morphine, hydrocodone and buprenorphine.

U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld II has said the motive was believed to be financial.

The drug task force is continuing to investigate whether Milan’s actions led to overdose deaths.

A neighbor of Milan’s found dead in his home June 8 in Fairmont was a patient of the doctor’s, according to an affidavit filed by the commander of the task force. The dead man had filled 30 prescriptions written by Milan since December for lorazepam, diazepam, temazepam, promethazine, oxycodone, codeine and morphine, the commander has alleged.

Milan had continued to prescribe morphine and oxycodone to the man even though he hadn’t been to see her for three months prior to his death, Ihlenfeld has said. That was a violation because those painkillers require physical visits to the doctor’s office, Ihlenfeld has said.

The dead man’s girlfriend, never a patient of Milan’s, had filled 47 prescriptions since September 2011, the commander has alleged. They were for alprazolam, oxycodone, phenobarbital, provigil, promethazine with codeine, and morphine. Text messages between the girlfriend and another male “demonstrate (the other male) was distributing the Schedule II substances she was receiving from Dr. Milan,” the commander has alleged.

West Virginia Board of Pharmacy records and state DHHR records linked Milan to three people who died of overdoses in 2010 and 2011, according to the task force commander. There were no DHHR statistics available for 2012 and this year on overdose deaths, the commander has asserted.

Of those three deaths from 2010 and 2011, the “immediate cause was determined to be directly related to prescribed pharmaceuticals that had been recently prescribed to them by Dr. Milan,” the commander has alleged.

Milan is scheduled for a hearing later this month before U.S. Magistrate John S. Kaull.

The doctor will be represented by Belinda J. Haynie, a veteran attorney from Morgantown who’s been named Milan’s court-appointed counsel.

Haynie declined to comment on the case. The attorney has ample experience in criminal law; she worked previously as an assistant prosecutor in Monongalia County until 2001, and has had cases in federal and state court ever since.

Haynie recently, for example, represented a defendant in a major bath salts conspiracy. That case also was investigated by the Greater Harrison Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force.

A check Wednesday in Bridgeport showed signs indicating that Milan’s pain clinic has shut down.