METHADONE CLINIC DOCTOR SENTENCED FOR PRESCRIPTION FRAUD

PORTLAND, MAINE A psychiatrist who founded a methadone clinic in
Westbrook was sentenced to six months in prison Monday for his
convictions last year for prescription fraud.

Dr. Marc Shinderman was convicted of writing prescriptions for
controlled substances using the name and drug registration number of
another physician. Shinderman, who was not licensed to write the
prescriptions in Maine, said he thought the arrangement was acceptable.

Shinderman also must serve another six months of home confinement
during two years of probation. U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby
also ordered him to pay $35,800 in restitution.

Shinderman was a co-founder of the Center for Addiction Problems in
Chicago before he came to Maine, where he started CAP Quality Care in
Westbrook in 2001. It was the second methadone clinic in the Portland area.

Shinderman has a 30-year history of working with methadone, which is
dispensed to addicts to curb their craving for opiates such as
heroin. But the charges against him were not related to methadone,
but rather to other medications that he prescribed to patients.

More than 100 former patients, colleagues, employees and friends
wrote letters to the court calling Shinderman a dedicated physician
and groundbreaking researcher who bent the rules to prescribe
necessary medication to patients in need.

But prosecutors in court documents described him as a reckless drug
provider who used generous doses of methadone and prescription drugs
to attract patients to his for-profit clinic.

Shinderman had faced up to 21 months in prison for his conviction on
58 counts, including 24 counts each of using another physician's Drug
Enforcement Agency registration number and aiding the acquisition of
controlled substances by deception.