Alaska Nurse Practitioner Sentenced to 26 Years for Illegally Prescribing Opioids That Killed Three Patients
Jessica Joyce Spayd, 55, a former advanced nurse practitioner from Eagle River in the Anchorage, Alaska, metropolitan area, was sentenced on November 13 to 26 years in federal prison for illegally prescribing opioids outside any legitimate medical purpose, causing the overdose deaths of three of her patients, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Alaska announced.
According to court documents, for over five years Spayd operated what purported to be a legitimate clinic offering treatment for chronic pain and addiction. In reality, without legitimate medical purpose and outside the scope of professional practice, she routinely prescribed staggeringly large quantities of highly addictive and sometimes lethal opioids and other drugs, often in notoriously dangerous combinations, with little to no medical justification, treatment plans, testing or physical examinations. She disregarded patients' medical histories, risk factors, past overdoses and pregnancies, ignored warnings from patients' family members, pharmacists and other medical providers, and ignored thousands of warning letters from insurance companies.
Spayd was originally convicted by a jury of offenses including causing five overdose deaths and was sentenced to 30 years, but that conviction and sentence were overturned because the presiding judge, now-former U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Kindred, erroneously failed to recuse himself. She then entered into an agreement with the government to plead guilty to causing three overdose deaths, and the 26-year sentence was imposed on that plea. Prosecutors said her conduct also contributed to at least 20 confirmed drug overdoses.
Scott Bradford, U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, who handled the case, said Spayd, as a licensed professional, acted more insidiously than a street-level dealer and used her license to inflict irreparable harm on patients who trusted her. Officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration's Seattle Field Division and the FBI's Anchorage Field Office also issued statements. The DEA and FBI investigated the case. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Alaska was recused, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven D. Clymer of the Northern District of New York was appointed as a Special Attorney to assist. (Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Alaska)
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Alaska
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：阿拉斯加州最大城市 Anchorage 市中心天际线，本案在该州起诉与量刑。Laura Alier 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons，已裁 16:9。 / Photo: The downtown Anchorage skyline in Alaska, where this case was prosecuted and sentenced. Photo by Laura Alier, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped to 16:9.
