Lake Milton doctor pleads guilty to illegally prescribing opioids that caused 2 fatal ODs

A Lake Milton-area doctor has admitted to illegally prescribing opioid medications that caused two deaths.

Martin Escobar, 58, of Youngstown, on Monday pleaded guilty to illegally distributing controlled substances, causing the deaths of two patients, unlawfully distributing a controlled substance to a person under the age of 21 and health care fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio.

Escobar operated Lake Shore Medical Center along Mahoning Avenue in Lake Milton.

He was initially charged in federal court in 2019 with 145 total counts relating to illegal prescriptions. A superseding indictment handed down in May charged him with 86 total counts for illegally prescribing opioid drugs between March 2015 and October 2019, including oxycodone and hydrocodone and sedatives like benzodiazepine and stimulants — “all outside the course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose,” the release states.

“Escobar admitted that, in order to support his unlawful prescription practices, he used false diagnoses, falsified patient pain intensity scales in medical charts, increased dosages of controlled substances and prescribed them for prolonged periods without evidence of efficacy,” reads the release. “Furthermore, Escobar admitted to inadequately investigating patient pain complaints, failing to pursue treatment options other than controlled substances and falsely claiming to have performed extensive physical examinations on his patients.”

Drug screens of Escobar’s patients — “many of which were performed in Escobar’s medical office and later billed to the government,” according to the release — suggested that those patients began abusing the drugs, using other controlled substances and illegally re-selling their prescriptions.

Escobar “admitted to ignoring warning signs of his patients’ drug addiction and abuse,” reads the release.

Escobar also pleaded guilty to prescribing opioids in 2015 and 2016 on which two of his patients fatally overdosed. In another instance, Escobar illegally prescribed opioids to a person younger than 21 years old who didn’t have a medical need for them.

Escobar is set for sentencing May 17.

His plea agreement remains sealed through the federal court records system, so it’s unclear to which of the 86 charges Escobar has pleaded guilty, or how attorneys have stipulated his sentence.

Escobar surrendered his Drug Enforcement Administration registration — and, subsequently, his ability to prescribe medicine — in January 2020 while under investigation, in order to be released from custody, state records show. The Ohio Medical Board indefinitely suspended Escobar’s medical license in July.

Records show Escobar’s license was initially issued in 2001. Since then, he has faced several citations and board reprimands, most relating to continuing medical education that he lied about completing.