El Paso doctor to be sentenced for “pill mill” conviction

An El Paso doctor will be sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to federal drug charges.

Dr. Fernando Gonzalez-Ramos faces as much as 5 years, 11 months in federal prison for running a so-called “pill mill” at a clinic in West Virginia.

The FBI reports that Gonzalez-Ramos traveled back and forth from El Paso to West Virginia, where he would write prescriptions for powerful painkillers for non-medical purposes.

The clinic in West Virginia didn’t serve any legitimate medical purpose, said U. S. Attorney Booth Goodwin. “His so-called office had no exam table, no running water and not even so much as a stethoscope,” Goodwin said. “For thousands of dollars in cash he was pumping out prescriptions for thousands of units of powerful narcotics.”

Gonzalez-Ramos also worked at William Beaumont Army Medical Center, in El Paso. He was not charged with any wrongdoing in connection with that job.