A federal judge sentenced Honolulu physician Barry Odegaard to five years in prison yesterday for prescribing powerful painkillers to patients without examining them to determine whether there was medical justification for them to receive the drugs.

 

  Hawaii Doctor Gets 5 Years For Medication

 

  Dr. Barry Odegaard was sentenced to five years in federal prison for over-prescribing painkillers that killed two of his patients. 

 

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  U.S. District Judge David Ezra also ordered Odegaard, 56, former Hawaii state fight doctor who monitored boxers during matches, to pay a $12,500 fine.

A jury found Odegaard guilty in June of prescribing oxycodone and methadone outside the course of professional medical practice and not for a legitimate medical purposes on five occasions in 2004.

Odegaard had been charged with causing the overdose deaths of two patients to whom he prescribed oxycodone and methadone. Ezra later amended the charges after finding there was not enough evidence that Odegaard's actions resulted in the deaths.

Ezra said for many years, Odegaard was a very responsible physician, but at some point he began to see his role differently and “;crossed the line into criminal behavior.”; Odegaard has until January to turn himself in. His lawyer Birney Bervar said Odegaard needs the time to close his practice and refer his remaining patients to other doctors. He said Odegaard's practice has suffered because of the criminal case and he is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Odegaard also faces a lawsuit in state court over the death of a third person who, according to the man's family, died in May 2005 of an overdose of oxycodone and OxyContin.