A doctor who prescribed more than 4 million opioid pills, which included a pregnant woman who later died, will be sentenced in U.S. District Court by Chief United States Judge S. Thomas Anderson, Western District of Tennessee, at 10 a.m., September 21.

Prosecutors alleged in an indictment that Jackson physician Dr. Kelly Thomas Ballard III prescribed 4.2 million opioid pills, sometimes in dangerous combination with other drugs such as benzodiazepines.

They said Ballard sold opioids to known addicts and to a pregnant woman, who later died.
She was not identified.

Ballard, 63, “often used his power to prescribe controlled substances to convince purported patients to allow him to kiss, hug, grope, or otherwise inappropriately touch them,” the indictment said.

Ballard is one of more than 30 medical professionals in Tennessee charged with illegally prescribing and distributing millions of painkillers, according to federal authorities.

Ballard, who ran Ballard Clinic in Jackson, was charged with several crimes, including unlawfully dispensing controlled substances and distributing a drug resulting in death or serious bodily injury. The former charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years, and the latter of at least 20 years.

Sixteen medical professionals were charged with illegally distributing opioids and other painkillers in west Tennessee – nine were charged in middle Tennessee and another eight medical professionals were charged in the Knoxville-based Eastern District of Tennessee.

A total of 60 people, including 53 medical professionals who wrote 350,000 prescriptions and distributed 32 million pills, were charged nationally, authorities said in 2019.

They said most of those charged were from the five states targeted by the strike force: Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.

A total of 650 people died from prescription opioids in Tennessee in 2017.