Buckhead Doctor Sentenced For Illegally Prescribing Painkillers

BUCKHEAD, GA -- Seven people, including a doctor who ran a clinic in Buckhead, were sentenced for conspiring to illegally prescribe and dispense prescription drugs, Georgia's U.S. Attorney announced Thursday.

Dr. Romie Earl Roland was sentenced to 10 years in prison for prescribing prescription drugs "for no legitimate reason," prosecutors said.

“Physicians, like Roland, take an oath to do no harm, but he ignored his responsibility when he joined with a corrupt clinic owner to make money by selling prescriptions to drug seekers,” U.S. Attorney John Horn said in a statement. “Roland only helped to fuel the opiate crisis that plagues our community.”

Roland's scheme attracted agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration as far back as 2012, when federal authorities opened an investigation into "suspicious activity" at the Express Health Center clinic in the Buckhead, according to court documents cited by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors said that co-defendant Anthony Licata, who specifically came to Atlanta to open a "pill mill" owned the clinic. Other staffers, including Charlyn Carter, the clinic’s office manager, were in on the elicit operation.

The clinic, which was only open twice a week, grew to distribute large quantities of narcotics, including oxycodone, methadone, and Percocet, to drug dealers and drug abusers.

Roland moved his operations around, prescribing drugs as a physician at several clinics in the metro area, including ATL Pain Institute in Doraville, Key Pain Center in Lawrenceville and the Atlanta Pain & Rehabilitation in southwest Atlanta outside West End Mall.

Other co-defendants sentenced in the case are Adrian Singletary, who acted as security guard, Dante Cummings, Danny Thompson, Anthony Ferguson and Joshua Gadd.

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