Doctor Forced to Give Up License
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- An Independence doctor has agreed to forfeit more than $1.1 million and give up his medical license after pleading guilty to his role in a drug-trafficking scheme. Bruce Layne Baker pleaded guilty last month and entered into a plea agreement that was unsealed this week. The 54-year-old admitted that he started providing illegal prescriptions to strippers, bartenders and bouncers at a strip club in 2006.
Federal prosecutors say Baker began writing prescriptions for OxyContin and Oxycodone to others without a medical examination or demonstrated medical need. Baker agreed to pay $952,520, representing the amount of sales, and $214,000 for illegal prescriptions paid for by health care
benefit programs. Two others have pleaded guilty in separate but related cases.