A potty-mouthed, tattooed Tennessee nurse who called himself the “Rock Doc” and tried to launch a reality series about his medical practice and party lifestyle was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday for illegally prescribing opioids in exchange for sex and money.
Nurse practitioner Jeffrey Young Jr. doled out 100,000 doses of hydrocodone, oxycodone and fentanyl into his small Jackson community and signed illegal scripts to a pregnant woman, known addicts and women he was having sex with, according to US Justice Department investigators.
Young, 49, gave out prescriptions for the addictive and potentially deadly drugs to hundreds of patients in exchange for payment via money or sexual favors — but also notoriety, prosecutors allege.
The self-proclaimed “Rock Doc” who was not a doctor “maintained a party-like atmosphere” at his medical clinic, Preventagenix, and prescribed the drugs at least in part to promote his 2016 self-produced reality show “Rock Doc TV.”
In a 10-minute pilot video and another clip on his YouTube page for his failed show, Young can be seen kissing women in a club, taking shots, rapping about his “haters,” cruising on his motorcycle and flipping the bird in addition to seeing patients at his clinic.
“It’s not just a clinic, it’s an experience,” Young said of his practice.
But that experience was darker than what he showed in the videos.
“The self-proclaimed ‘Rock Doc’ abused the power of the prescription pad to supply his small community with hundreds of thousands of doses of highly addictive prescription opioids to obtain money, notoriety, and sexual favors,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Young was convicted of unlawfully distributing and dispensing controlled substances about a year ago. He was among 60 people indicted in April 2019 for an illegal drug prescription ring.
He’s also been accused of sex crimes including rape and was called a “sexual predator” by federal prosecutors who said he filmed himself having sex with a “nearly unconscious woman” and would often show his employees photos of himself engaging in sex acts at his clinic, The Tennessean reported.
One investigator testified that Young may have been having sex with roughly 50 of his patients, according to the outlet.
The local newspaper published a 2,400-word investigation into Young in 2019 and found that allegations of his illegal pill dealing and improper sexual relationships were known long before the federal investigation.
The Tennessee Department of Health had been investigating the nurse for four years after receiving at least 13 complaints about him since 2015 but the agency still allowed him to keep his medical license and keep prescribing opioids even after finding evidence of misuse, according to The Tennessean investigation.
