Arlington, Va Doctor Convicted of Illicit Distribution of More Than 1 Million Opioid Pills
ARL.now, Dec. 13, 2023. - Ed.
An Arlington doctor indicted earlier this year on charges of illicit distribution of opioid pills was found guilty by a federal jury Tuesday.
Dr. Kirsten Ball, 69, was convicted on 20 federal counts that each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Ball’s office manager and co-conspirator was sentenced to 7 years in prison last year. “For over a decade, Dr. Ball was at the epicenter of a conspiracy to distribute oxycodone via a network of individuals posing as patients who were prescribed over a million pills,” Jessica Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement.
“She blatantly abused legitimate healthcare procedures, despite clear knowledge of the law and warnings from regulatory agencies of the danger her actions posed to patients.” Arlington has been hard hit by the national opioid crisis. There were more than 70 fatal opioid overdoses here between 2015 and 2020. The crisis has also infiltrated local schools, with the fatal in-school overdose of a Wakefield High School student this year. More below, from a U.S. Dept. of Justice press release.
A federal jury today convicted an Arlington woman of illegally prescribing and distributing oxycodone pills, a controlled substance. According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Kirsten Van Steenberg Ball, 69, issued prescriptions for over one million oxycodone pills. Ball was a primary care physician who operated a medical practice out of her home in Arlington. She conspired with her office manager, Candy Marie Calix, 41, of Front Royal, to shield from law enforcement and regulatory authorities the fact that she was dispensing vast quantities of oxycodone to her patients—contrary to ordinary standards of medical care.
.. She prescribed multiple patients as many as 360 oxycodone 30-mg tablets per month, and prescribed similarly high quantities of oxycodone to multiple members of families, spouses, and close friends. Ball was also shown to have paid patients to perform manual labor on her home and vehicles, sometimes while concurrently prescribing the patients oxycodone, ostensibly for long-term pain. She had 3 of her patients providing unpaid cleaning services at her home bi-weekly for a number of years during the conspiracy...
https://www.arlnow.com/2023/12/13/arlington-doctor-convicted-of-illicit-distribution-of-more-than-1-million-opioid-pills
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