Westmoreland County Doctor, Patient Arrested On Prescription Drug Charges

A Westmoreland County doctor and his patient, who allegedly conspired to obtain pills by writing and passing scripts in the name of the patient's family members, were arrested Wednesday by agents from the attorney general's office.

Attorney General Tom Corbett identified the defendants as Dr. Christian Vittone, 43, of Laughlintown, and his longtime patient, Michael Miller, 49, of Blairsville.

Corbett said that Vittone began prescribing Percocet, Valium and Ativan to Miller in 2006 for legitimate medical needs.

According to the criminal complaint, once the prescribed medications were no longer managing Miller's pain he requested stronger and additional quantities from Vittone.

The charges state that even though Vittone had prescribed the highest dosage and quantity possible, he told Miller that in order to get additional quantities of the drugs he needed the names of family members or individuals for whom he could write additional scripts.

Corbett said between 2006 and 2008, Vittone and Miller obtained thousands of pills in Miller's name and the names of Miller's wife and his mother, as well as two of Miller's employees. Vittone allegedly provided Miller with the false prescriptions and Miller or his employees passed them at various area pharmacies.

According to the criminal complaint, Miller kept many of the pills for his own personal use, but also returned a significant number of pills to Vittone.

"Prescription-strength pain relievers are powerful and highly addictive substances," Corbett said. "Just like illegal narcotics, these drugs can cause a normally responsible adult to do things seemingly out of character. However, addiction does not excuse someone of his or her crimes. And, in this case, we have a doctor who allegedly violated his medical oath to feed his and a friend's dependence."

Over the course of the investigation, agents obtained nearly 200 prescriptions from pharmacies in Westmoreland and Indiana counties, which Vittone allegedly prescribed.

Corbett said that in addition to writing these scripts, beginning in 2005, Vittone wrote and personally filled numerous scripts totaling over 3,000 Oxycodone pills under the names of his girlfriend and ex-wife without their knowledge or consent. A number of these prescriptions were allegedly processed and paid for by their insurance companies.

Agents learned that Miller also used his mother's insurance to pay for the prescriptions that were passed under her name.

Vittone is charged with eight counts of practicing outside the scope of the patient relationship, three counts of acquisition of a controlled substance through misrepresentation, four counts of insurance fraud and one count of criminal conspiracy.

Miller is charged with four counts of acquisition of a controlled substance through misrepresentation, one count of insurance fraud and one count of criminal conspiracy.