Doctor gets 5-year term in prescription abuse case

Tuesday, March 7th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced a former doctor to more years in prison than guidelines recommend, calling him a "predator" for prescribing drugs to people that didn't need them.

U.S. District Judge Sven Erik Holmes gave John Thomas Forsythe, 65, a term of five years and three months in prison. The maximum term under sentencing guidelines was four years and nine months.

Prosecutors alleged that Forsythe swapped prescriptions for sex and money. They told the court that the doctor targeted vulnerable young women in an attempt to get them addicted to the drugs.

Prosecutors identified 30 victims, but the court disregarded three of those cases. Forsythe pleaded guilty Oct. 15 to distributing a controlled substance illegally. He admitted that he prescribed 60 tablets of a tranquilizer for no legitimate medical purpose on July 14, 1998, to someone who was not a patient.

Holmes accepted the prosecution's assertion that Forsythe wrote1, 300 illegal prescriptions from January 1996 to July 1998. Forsythe's attorney argued that the sex was consensual, that some of the prescriptions were forged and others were for legitimate medial reasons.

The doctor lost his medical license in 1998 after pleading no contest to 13 counts of unprofessional conduct before the state licensure board.