Eagle River Nurse Practitioner Guilty on All Counts
Update 06/16/23
From the U.S. Attorney's Office:
Former Advanced Nurse Practitioner Jessica Joyce Spayd (52) was sentenced in U.S. District Court yesterday to 30 years (360 months) imprisonment for illegally prescribing and dispensing opioids outside the scope of legitimate medical practice that resulted in the deaths of five people between 2014 and 2019. United States District Judge Joshua M. Kindred handed down the sentence. A jury convicted Spayd on October 27, 2022, of 10 crimes including five counts of illegal drug distribution that resulted in death and one count of maintaining a drug involved premises. She was also ordered to forfeit $117,000 in unlawful proceeds. The parties presented 51 witnesses during the four-week trial. Government witnesses included pharmacists who refused to fill prescriptions from Spayd, law enforcement agents and officers who investigated the deaths, Spayd’s employees, individuals who received pills from Spayd, medical experts, every Medical Examiner in Alaska (each of whom performed autopsies on different overdose victims), and family members of the victims. Evidence presented during the trial showed that Spayd prescribed and dispensed 4.5 million dosages of opioids in just over five years including fentanyl, methadone, oxycodone, and hydromorphone. Many times she combined those prescriptions with prescriptions for dangerous other drugs like valium and muscle relaxers, known as the “holy trinity,” greatly increasing the chances of overdose death. She wrote these prescriptions with little to no medical justification or treatment plan; minimal, if any, tests or physical examinations; and little, if any, considerations of non-opioid treatment. Many of her patients were vulnerable and suffering from chronic pain, addiction, and mental illness, yet Spayd disregarded their medical histories, risk factors, past overdoses, symptoms, and pleas to reduce or taper their doses. She also ignored warnings from patients’ family members, pharmacists, and other medical providers, and defied thousands of warning letters sent by insurance companies about the dangers of her practices. In imposing the sentence, Judge Kindred emphasized the trust that society places in medical practitioners like Spayd and remarked that “when [practitioners] fail in their responsibilities, [they] can do far greater harm than the drug dealer on the street corner.” He also acknowledged that Spayd “knew she was in effect killing people, and she just kept doing it,” for nearly two decades. “This is the deadliest drug case in this district’s history. And disturbingly, the five deaths the Defendant was convicted of at trial are just the tip of the iceberg” because “Spayd may have caused or contributed to the deaths of dozens: 20 total confirmed drug overdoses and many others suspected. She was a serial killer with a ‘poison pen,’” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan D. Tansey wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court. “[H]er conduct was far more insidious” than that of a street level dealer “because she sanctioned (and supplied) lethal levels of drugs for her patients, day after day, year after year, under the shroud of a prescribing license, assuring them that it was safe and necessary. In the process, she abused her authority and violated her oath as a medical professional, prescribing higher doses per patient than any other prescriber in Alaska during the charging period.” “Medical practitioners who abuse their positions of trust by supplying millions of opioids for no legitimate medical purpose wreak havoc on our community,” said U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker. “Let this sentence send a clear message to any other medical practitioners considering similar conduct in Alaska: our office and law enforcement partners will work tirelessly to investigate and prosecute these cases, and you will be punished severely.” “Ms. Spayd betrayed the trust of her profession, those under her care, and her community by prescribing a staggering amount of opioids along with other powerful narcotics,” said Jacob D. Galvan, Acting Special Agent in Charge, DEA Seattle Field Division. “This lengthy sentence emphasizes the seriousness of Ms. Spayd’s actions and should be seen as deterrent to those who aim to bring harm to our communities.” “Spayd callously abused her dispensing authority, while fueling the opioid epidemic and poisoning our communities in the process,” said Special Agent in Charge Antony Jung of the FBI Anchorage Field Office. “This investigation and subsequent prosecution was about seeking justice for the victims and their families, and holding Spayd accountable for her destructive and lethal crimes. With Spayd’s abuse linked to a significant loss of life, this sentence will undoubtedly have a direct public safety impact on our community.” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan Tansey and Michael Heyman prosecuted the case. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted the investigation leading to the charges in this case, with invaluable assistance from members of the North Slope Borough Police Department, the Alaska Health Care Fraud Task Force, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-Office of the Inspector General, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Office of Law Enforcement and Security, Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Alaska State Parks Rangers, Alaska State Troopers, Anchorage Police Department, Alaska Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the State of Alaska Division of Insurance. The Alaska Health Care Fraud Task Force (AHCFTF) is a partnership of local, state, federal, and private agencies focused on the investigation of health care fraud, waste, and abuse in Alaska or affecting Alaskan interests. For more information: https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/fieldoffices/anchorage/alaska-health-care-fraud-task-force
Original:
From the U.S. Attorney's Office:
ANCHORAGE – A federal jury convicted an Eagle River nurse practitioner on 10 felony counts, including five counts of distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death, four counts of distribution and dispensing of a controlled substance and one count of maintaining a drug involved premises. The conviction follows a four-week trial before U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Kindred.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Jessica Joyce Spayd, 51, operated Eagle River Pain and Wellness where she prescribed nearly 4.5 million opioids between January 2014 and October 2019 causing addiction, suffering and death. She did so with little to no medical justification or treatment plan; minimal, if any, tests or physical examinations; and little if any considerations of non-opioid treatment.
Spayd’s opioid prescriptions were excessive and drastically exceeded medical norms, routinely five to 15 times higher than the maximum safe daily dosage recommended by state and federal health guidelines and combined with other narcotics known to exacerbate the risk of addiction and overdose death.
When she was out of the office, Spayd routinely pre-signed and pre-dated prescriptions and instructed non-medical staff to distribute the prescriptions to patients for a cash fee. And, in addition to her “patients,” she illegally prescribed nearly 5,000 opioid pills to her opioid-addicted, live-in ex-boyfriend by writing the names of other individuals on those prescriptions. She also created false appointment records for those other individuals, who the evidence showed were outside of Alaska or out of the United States when those appointments purportedly occurred.
For years, dozens of pharmacists throughout Alaska told the defendant to stop the dangerous prescribing and to lower the dosages for her patients. Emergency room doctors who treated her patients for opioid overdoses told her to stop. Insurance companies sent thousands of letters telling her to stop. Concerned family members of her patients pleaded with her to stop. Her prescribing was so far outside the normal course of medical practice that multiple major pharmacy chains like Walmart and Safeway, and the Chief of Pharmacy at Joint Base Elmendorf, enacted unprecedented policies refusing to fill her narcotic prescriptions.
Between May and July 2019, Spayd prescribed nearly 200 opioid pills in just three appointments to an undercover DEA agent posing as an opioid addict with no current pain symptoms in exchange for large cash payments. She specifically acknowledged in a recorded conversation with the undercover agent that what she was doing was a felony and she could go to jail.
U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker of the District of Alaska made the announcement.
Spayd was initially charged by indictment in October 2019 and then with a superseding indictment in January 2021 by the United States Attorney’s Office, District of Alaska.
These offenses carry mandatory minimum of 20 years to life in federal prison for the most serious charges. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. There is no parole in the federal system.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan Tansey and Michael Heyman are prosecuting the case.
