PORTLAND — A former Portland podiatrist, who has been under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration since 2010, has been indicted on 45 drug and health care fraud charges for writing illegal prescriptions.

A federal grand jury indicted John Perry, 50, on charges of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, health care fraud and 43 counts of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland said Thursday.

Perry is accused of writing prescriptions with no medical purpose, trading prescriptions for cash and cocaine and fabricating patient charts to cover the illegal prescriptions, while practicing at Atlantic Foot & Ankle Center in Portland during 2009 and 2010, the indictment says.

On the conspiracy charge and all but one of the drug distribution charges, Perry faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. On the health care fraud charge, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Perry, who now lives in Bridgton, was living in Cumberland when his home and office were raided by federal drug agents in November 2010, soon after police pulled him over driving near his home and found a gram of cocaine in his car.

Perry was arrested in April 2010 on a charge of operating under the influence, which would have been reduced to a driving-to-endanger conviction if Perry had stayed out of trouble for a year.

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Soon after the federal raid, Perry was among a group of men found after midnight by police at a shut down strip club, Dreamers Cabaret, in Westbrook, where music was booming, disco lights were flashing and scantily clad women were serving coffee.

A few weeks later, Perry closed his podiatry practice.

Perry pleaded guilty last March to operating under the influence, and was sentenced to two days in jail. He is scheduled to appear in court next month to enter a plea for a misdemeanor charge of possession of cocaine.

A month after pleading guilty to OUI, Perry’s doctor’s license was suspended by the Board of Podiatric Medicine for an indefinite period of time, according to records on the state’s website. The license remained suspended through the end of June, when it was up for renewal. He did not renew the license.

The records show that Perry was also disciplined by the board in 2003 for violating “professionalism in doctor-patient relationships” during a telephone conversation in 2001.

There were no additional details of the incident in a consent agreement reached as a result of the complaint, which required Perry to keep a log of all drug prescriptions for 20 or more tablets for a year and periodically submit that log to the board for review.


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