A State College surgeon is facing felony charges for allegedly prescribing opioid pain medications and other drugs to a woman who was not his patient, but with whom he was having an affair.
The Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General filed charges on Friday against Dr. Kenneth L. Cherry, 58, after an investigation that began in May 2016 when CVS Pharmacy in State College informed the Bureau of Narcotics Investigations about large amounts of controlled substances being prescribed to a woman by Cherry. He is an orthopedic surgeon with University Orthopedic Center, which he co-founded in 1991, according to UOC’s website.
Investigators said that between November 2014 and May 2016 Cherry wrote 63 prescriptions for the woman for Oxycodone, Percocet, Fentanyl, Adderall, Xanax and Ativan. The woman reportedly had at one time been a patient at UOC, but not a patient of Cherry’s and investigators said the center had no records of her having patient visits with Cherry or of him writing her a prescription.
According to the OAG’s office, Cherry initially said in June 2016 that he met with the woman privately and wrote her prescriptions without keeping records because she had no insurance. In October, OAG agents again met with Cherry, who allegedly acknowledged his affair with the woman and said he believed he was doing ‘a good deed,’ in writing her the prescriptions.
The woman reportedly told investigators that she had a romantic relationship with Cherry and that he would leave prescriptions for her to retrieve from his unlocked vehicle. She reportedly said she did have insurance, and that she used it to pay for the prescriptions.
Cherry was charged with six felony counts of prescribing a controlled substance outside the scope of his practice and six misdemeanor counts of failure to keep records of the distribution of controlled substances.
He was arraigned before District Judge Thomas Jordan on Friday and unsecured bail was set at $20,000.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 19.
