Former pill mill doctor gets 157 years for drug trafficking

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A former Florida doctor previously convicted in the overdose death of one of his patients has been sentenced 157 years in prison for drug trafficking.

News outlets report that 62-year-old Barry Schultz was sentenced Tuesday. He had previously received 25 years in prison for 55 drug trafficking counts, but a state appeals court ruled the sentence was too light under sentencing guidelines.

A jury in 2015 found Schultz guilty of prescribing as many as 20,000 narcotics pills in less than a year to patients who came to his Delray Beach office complaining of pain.

Schultz was previously convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison for fatally over-prescribing methadone to 50-year-old David Tain in 2010.