Press Release
Contact:
Rich Isaacson
Drug Enforcement Administration
Detroit Field Division
PHONE: (313) 234-4310
Maarten Vermaat
ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY
PHONE: (906) 226-2500
Menominee Doctor Sentenced to Prison
for Writing Unauthorized Prescriptions
Marquette, Michigan - May 12, 2009 - Dr. Louis J. Cannella, Jr., age 61, of Menominee, Michigan, was sentenced to serve 48 months in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Donald A. Davis and Robert L. Corso, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Detroit Field Division, announced today. Chief United States District Judge Paul L. Maloney, who sentenced Dr. Cannella this morning, also ordered the doctor to serve a term of three years on supervised release following his prison term.
In 2006, the DEA, along with Michigan State Police (MSP), the Straits Area Narcotics Enforcement Team (SANE), the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team (UPSET), other local law enforcement agencies, launched an on-going cooperative effort to combat the illegal diversion of prescription drugs in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In what is believed to be the largest coordinated clean-up of prescription drug violations in the history of the Upper Peninsula, 57 defendants were arrested and prosecuted on a number of state and federal drug distribution charges.
Among those charged was Dr. Cannella, a physician who worked in Menominee, Michigan. Dr. Cannella opened a walk-in, storefront clinic in Menominee in January 2006. Almost immediately, the Sheriff’s Departments in Menominee County, Michigan, and Marinette County, Wisconsin, began receiving complaints from the public, local pharmacists, and members of the medical community regarding Dr. Cannella’s prescribing habits. The Sheriff’s Departments opened a joint investigation and were assisted by the Menominee City Police Department, the Marinette City Police Department, and the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation.
Under federal law, a physician who holds a DEA registration may prescribe a controlled substance if, first, the prescription is for a legitimate medical purpose and, second, the doctor is acting in the usual course of professional practice. Dr. Cannella held a DEA registration that authorized him to write prescriptions for all controlled substances that have medical purposes. A separate DEA registration is required when a physician wishes to write prescriptions to assist someone who is recovering from drug addiction. Dr. Cannella did not have this type of DEA registration.
The DEA began assisting the joint investigation of Dr. Cannella in mid-2006 and executed search warrants at Dr. Cannella’s office and home in November 2006. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Cannella surrendered his DEA registration, thereby giving up his privilege to prescribe controlled substance medications of any type.
The joint investigation revealed that Dr. Cannella had been writing prescriptions for controlled substances that were, at times, inappropriate to treat the patient’s condition, or were excessive, given the patient’s condition. He also wrote prescriptions even though he had conducted only limited or no physical examination of the patient, did not seek additional medical testing, and had not reviewed the patient’s records.
Dr. Cannella saw almost 500 patients in his walk-in clinic between January and November 2006, and wrote prescriptions for controlled substances for 94% of these patients. DEA experts state that physicians at walk-in clinics typically treat acute illnesses such as the flu, infections, common colds, sprained joints, etc., and typically write prescriptions for controlled substances for only a small percentage of their patients. Physicians at walk-in clinics rarely provide long-term treatment of chronic pain. Accordingly, Dr. Cannella’s prescribing habits were regarded as suspicious.
The investigation also revealed that Dr. Cannella attended training at Marquette General Hospital (MGH) in October 2005, while he was employed at Northern Menominee Health Clinic, and was instructed on a wide variety of techniques and methods that a physician can employ to determine when a chronic pain patient who seeks drugs is actually abusing their pain medications or selling their medications on the street. These methods include, the use of pill counts, random drug testing, and so-called “narcotics contracts.” Despite attending training at MGH, Dr. Cannella did not employ any of these methods.
A federal grand jury in Marquette indicted Dr. Cannella on July 29, 2008, for multiple violations of the federal Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. The indictment alleged that, during an 11 month period from January to November 2006, Dr. Cannella prescribed in an unauthorized manner Oxycodone, Methadone, Morphine Sulfate, various forms of hydrocodone, and other drugs.
Dr. Cannella ultimately pled guilty to a single count in the indictment that charged that he prescribed 948 ten milligram methadone pills over a 4-month period to treat a patient’s toothache without referring the patient to a dentist. Because methadone is a Schedule II controlled substance, Dr. Cannella faced up to 20 years in prison on this charge alone.
The investigation of Dr. Cannella also resulted in federal convictions of persons who were selling drugs they had obtained from him. Last July, U.S. District Judge R. Allan Edgar sentenced Kim Renae Cummings, age 40, of Marinette, Wisconsin, to 57 months in federal prison for illegal distribution of prescription drugs. In August, Judge Edgar sentenced Susan Lynn Carr, age 27, of Wilson, Michigan, to 24 months in federal prison, and Carr’s sister, Tami Jean Rumfelt, age 23, to 18 months in federal prison. And in November, U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell sentenced Tina Marie Eichhorn, age 35, of Hermansville, Michigan, to 60 months in federal prison. Eichhorn received prescription drugs from Carr and Rumfelt, and re-sold these drugs.
The DEA’s prescription drug initiative in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan has included the participation of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan, MSP, UPSET, SANE, the MSP Forensic Laboratory in Marquette, most of the 15 County Prosecuting Attorney’s in the Upper Peninsula, Sheriff’s Departments and city police departments across the Upper Peninsula, and multiple law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin.
Dr. Cannella was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maarten Vermaat.
END
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May 12, 2009