Dr. Jeffrey Olsen, a 65-year-old Newport Beach doctor who was acquitted of distributing painkillers and Xanax, was sentenced intead on Friday to six months in federal prison for lying in a Drug Enforcement Administration registration application.
U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb also placed Olsen on three years of supervised release. Olsen has until March 20 to report to federal prison.
Olsen was convicted on April 10 on the single felony charge as jurors acquitted him of four felony counts related to the drug distribution charges.
The jurors deadlocked on 30 other counts and the prosecutors then moved to dismiss those counts.
Prosecutors argued for two years of prison, but that amount of time was above the sentencing guidelines for Olsen. Judge Holcomb said such a punishment was “not at all appropriate here.” But he also added that Olsen dserved to spend some time behind bars.
Holcomb actually referred to Olsen as “a good man,” but he also added that “there was a time he lost his way pretty badly. … He was convicted of a felony and there are consequences.”
Although Olsen was acquitted of the drug distribution charges and prosecutors dropped the other counts, there was trial evidence that Olsen texted some of his customers that they had to pay in cash and he was increasing the cost due to the risk to his livelihood. Holcomb also noted that the Olsen had also threatened to stop prescriptions if his clients couldn’t pay him.
That aside, Holcomb continued to insist that Olse was a “good man.”
When Olsen was indicted way back in 2017, he was accused of writing illegal prescriptions from 2013 through 2016.
Olsen’s defense attorney, Elena Rose Sadowsky, said that her client was a drug addict at the time and has since recovered and has helped many other addicts. She added that he is “really trying to make amends.”
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Caitlin Jean Campbell, said that Olsen merited a longer prison sentence because he had been sending pills to addicts in other states and he has not shown an appropriate level of “accountability” in the case. Campbell also accused Olsen of “playing the victim” in his letter to Holcomb before sentencing.
Sadowsky, however, countered that Olsen has accepted responsibility for his misdeeds.
Holcomb is a judge on the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He was nominated by President Donald Trump (R) on November 21, 2019.[1] The U.S. Senate confirmed Holcomb by an 83-12 vote on September 15, 2020, according to Ballotpedia.