Tennessee clinic owner sentenced to 14 years in opioid case

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A former Tennessee clinic owner has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for illegally prescribing about 15,000 opioid pills to patients, including one who died, federal prosecutors said.

Mark Daniel Allen, 64, was sentenced Friday after he was convicted in September of unlawfully distributing controlled substances and maintaining a drug-involved premises, the U.S. attorney’s office in Chattanooga said.

Evidence showed Allen illegally prescribed pills to three women with whom he had sexual relationships, and to a man who later died.

Allen, of Venice, Florida, also must serve three years probation.

The FBI, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Manchester Police Department and the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case.