NEWS RELEASE
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
WESTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
John L. Brownlee United States Attorney Heidi Coy Public Affairs Specialist |
BB&T Building 310 1st Street, S.W., Room 906 Roanoke, Virginia 24011 (540) 857-2250 FAX (540) 857-2180 |
March 27, 2007
LAS VEGAS DOCTOR SENTENCED TO SEVEN YEARS IN PRISON FOR CONSPIRACY TO DISTRIBUTE DRUGS IN TAZEWELL AND BUCHANAN COUNTIES
United States Attorney John L. Brownlee announced today that Dr. Doyle Stuart Steele, age 51, of Las Vegas, Nevada was sentenced in the United States District Court in Big Stone Gap, Virginia on March 23, 2007, to seven years incarceration by the Honorable Judge James P. Jones for his involvement in a Conspiracy to Distribute Oxycodone. Also sentenced was his co-conspirator, Billie “Jack” Eugene Stiltner, age 73, of General Delivery, Patterson, Virginia, who received a sentence of five years for Conspiracy as well as five years for a charge of Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon to run concurrent.
Evidence previously presented during the guilty plea hearing revealed that Stiltner was a convicted felon who had a personal relationship with Dr. Steele, a gynecologist in Las Vegas, Nevada, prior to 2004. In that year Stiltner, who had recently moved to Buchanan County from Oklahoma, began distributing Oxycontin and other narcotics in Tazewell and Buchanan counties. The evidence proffered by the government at the guilty plea hearing indicated that Stiltner and Dr. Steele concocted a scheme in which Stiltner would transport nearly a dozen individuals on numerous trips from Southwest Virginia to Las Vegas, Nevada to meet with Steele after business hours. Although Dr. Steele neither examined nor treated any of these “patients” he prescribed them large amounts of narcotics, including Oxycontin, Percocet and hydrocodone. Several of these “patients” were males and several received prescriptions without ever even being seen by Dr. Steele. The prescriptions were filled and the narcotics were transported back to Virginia and sold on the street. Many of the prescriptions were for 180 Oxycontin 80mg pills which have a street value of $18,000.00 per prescription for a total street value of over $240,000.00. The government’s evidence further indicated that Steele received a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the narcotics. Steele’s offices were raided by a joint law enforcement contingency on June 14, 2005, at which time no medical records were located for any of these “patients” who had traveled from Southwest Virginia to seek the doctor’s “services.” Both Steele and Stiltner have been incarcerated since their arrests in late 2005. Steele requested at the sentencing hearing that he be allowed to serve his seven year sentence at a Nevada Federal Prison. There is no parole in the federal penitentiary system.
The investigation of the case was conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Task Force, Nevada Department of Public Safety, and the Las Vegas Drug Enforcement Administration Diversion. The Richlands Police Department, Virginia State Police and the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office also assisted with the investigation. Special Assistant United States Attorney Dennis Lee and Assistant United States Attorney Tom Bondurant prosecuted the case.