A grand jury indicted a second local doctor accused of running a multimillion dollar pill-mill scheme.
Federal investigators believe Dr. Tashawna Stokes and her husband Dr. Oscar Stokes wrote prescriptions, sometimes without even checking patients out.
"I was actually going to take him to the doctor that morning but my daughter – his daughter-- found him dead, said Suzanne Bohler, who is still grieving the loss of her husband. Joseph Bohler, 57, died last April just months before the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Innovative Pain Management Center, a pain clinic in Roswell.
Bohler says her husband struggled with pill addiction, and every month he drove more than an hour from Henry County to get a prescription. She says she went with him once.
"I sat in the car. He got what he needed to get and come back," Bohler said, stating the visits usually only took 20 minutes.
According to a federal indictment filed on July 7, 2015, Dr. Oscar Stokes was the owner of the clinic, and his wife, Tashawna Stokes also worked there.
Investigators say as part of the conspiracy, they wrote out prescriptions for heavy duty narcotics like oxycodone without conducting thorough examinations of patients. The feds believe Mrs. Stokes would forge her husband's name on some of the prescriptions.
Investigators believe the couple pulled in millions by charging patients for the service. There were driver's plate licenses from states across the country, when the alleged pill mill was raided back in August.
Bohler said it is not clear what ultimately lead to her husband's death, because he was otherwise in pretty good health.
"He's at fault, too, for taking them but if there weren't so readily available," she said, "You just got to know what the other person does, and try to help them."
Tashawna Stokes is currently working as a pediatrician in Kennesaw. She has not turned herself in on the federal drug and money laundering charges.
Stokes and her attorney did not return our call for comment. Dr. Oscar Stokes, her husband, entered a not-guilty plea last year.
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