DOCTOR GETS 20-YEAR SENTENCE

Drug Convictions Get Fortune Williams Maximum Prison Term

VANCEBURG -A Lewis circuit judge yesterday sentenced an Eastern Kentucky
doctor to 20 years in prison for unlawfully prescribing controlled substances.

Dr. Fortune Williams, 54, a California pediatrician hired to work at a
small clinic at Garrison from Dec. 1, 2000, to Oct. 30, 2001, had been
convicted March 17 on all counts of a four-count indictment by a Lewis
County jury.

In sentencing Williams, Judge Lewis D. Nicholls followed the jury's
recommendation that Williams be sentenced to the maximum 5-year prison term
on each count, and he be ordered to serve those sentences consecutively.

Nicholls overruled motions by Williams' attorney, public defender Bryan
Underwood, of Maysville, to probate or merge the sentences. He also denied
a motion for a new trial. The judge granted Underwood's motion to set an
appeal bond of $25,000 cash for Williams, who has been in Lewis County Jail
since August under a $10,000 cash bond.

Lewis Circuit Clerk Kathy Hardy said Williams "did not show any emotion
whatsoever" during sentencing.

Commonwealth's Attorney Clifford R. Duvall had suggested Williams lowered
himself to being a street-level drug dealer at 1st Care clinic "and needs
to be treated like that."

Prosecutors claimed at least 4,000 patients swarmed to the clinic at
Garrison. They also calculated the clinic in a town of 800 people was
taking in up to $14,000 a day in cash.