Kansas doctor gets life in prison for selling opioids that led to patient’s death

(CNN)A doctor in Kansas was sentenced to life in prison Friday for distributing prescription drugs that resulted in the death of a patient, federal officials said.

Wichita doctor Steven R. Henson, 57, was convicted in October after dozens of charges, including conspiracy to distribute prescription drugs outside the course of medical practice, presenting false patient records to investigators and money laundering, according to the Department of Justice.

Henson postdated prescriptions and wrote them without a medical need or legitimate exam in return for cash, federal officials said. In some instances, he prescribed opioid medications in dangerous amounts.
“There was ample evidence that Henson was prescribing opioid medications in amounts likely to lead to addiction, and in amounts so expensive that the patients would likely be forced by economic circumstances to support their addiction by selling some of the drugs to others,” US District Judge J. Thomas Marten said.

One of his patients died

Prosecutors also presented evidence that his prescribing of alprazolam and methadone resulted in the 2015 death of one of his patients, Nick McGovern, CNN affiliate KOAM reported.