NORFOLK, Va. – A Virginia Beach dentist pleaded guilty on May 9 to conspiracy to distribute oxycodonepills without a legitimate medical purpose.
Documents show that 48-year-old Gary Hartman has been a licensed dentist in Virginia since 2002.
Hartman was involved in an elaborate scheme to prescribe oxycodone pills for his personal use and the use of his co-conspirators, which fell into three different categories of individuals.
Close friends of Hartman from high school were the first category of co-conspirators. Hartman would write prescriptions for oxycodone to his friends without a legitimate medical purpose, the friends would fill the prescriptions, bring back most of the pills for Hartman’s personal use and keep the remainder for their personal use.
The second category of co-conspirators was another dentist. Hartman and the other dentist would write prescriptions to each other for oxycodone and muscle relaxants for the personal use of Hartman and the other dentist.
The third category of co-conspirators were people who were impoverished. Hartman would promise to perform free dental work on these individuals in exchange for the service of filling prescriptions of oxycodone pills written by Hartman and bringing the pills back to Hartman for his personal use.
This conspiracy involved 766 prescriptions written for non-medical reasons and almost 40,000 oxycodone pills.
Hartman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison when sentenced on October 2.
Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties.
