Mechanicsville doctor gets year in prescription, tax case

Mechanicsville doctor Torino R. "Tee" Jennings was sentenced to a year and one day in prison yesterday for writing tens of thousands of prescriptions over the Internet for people he never met or examined and failing to pay taxes on his earnings.

Jennings, 36, a former staff physician at Retreat Doctors' Hospital, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Boston, where he pleaded guilty in July to seven counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and four counts of tax evasion. He faced a maximum prison term of 27 years and $1.7 million in fines.

He will report to a federal prison Jan. 6. It was unclear yesterday where he will serve his time. There is no federal penitentiary in Massachusetts. After his release, he must complete three years of supervised probation.

Federal authorities said Jennings issued between 50,000 and 100,000 prescriptions over the Internet from 2004 to 2007 for Soma -- a muscle relaxant -- and other drugs without meeting or examining the patients.

The online pharmacies paid Jennings $5 to $7 for each prescription he wrote. "Virtually no request for drugs submitted by the online pharmacies . . . to Jennings for endorsement was ever rejected" by Jennings, according to the doctor's 11-count indictment.

In addition, Jennings "knowingly and intentionally" did not report hundreds of thousands of dollars he was paid to the Internal Revenue Service, the indictment says. Jennings' largest income discrepancy occurred in 2005, when he underreported his income by $96,412, authorities said.

Jennings was indicted in federal court in Boston because electronic tax filings, the type made by Jennings, are handled in Andover, Mass.

Jennings, of the 10100 block of Scots Lane in Mechanicsville, practiced primarily at Retreat Doctors' Hospital in Richmond. His privileges to practice there have been permanently suspended, a spokeswoman said.

In a 22-page memorandum seeking leniency, Jennings' two Boston attorneys asked the court to consider the totality of Jennings' life in determining punishment, because his convictions are "an aberration from [his] remarkable life record."

Attorneys wrote that Jennings' "tireless commitment to his community and family is poignantly illustrated" by the dozens of supportive letters submitted to the court by friends, professional colleagues, former patients, school officials, and parents of children he helped or coached.

He became a mentor to young African-American children, counseled boys on sports teams he coached, volunteered his medical services to several Richmond-area schools and provided free medical care to needy patients, among other good deeds, the attorneys wrote.

"He has literally become a surrogate parent to many young African-American males who depend on him, and they in return absorb and mimic the exemplary qualities he so carefully demonstrates in front of them," wrote longtime friend Dr. Sauntasha L. Austin of Liberty University's School of Education.

In October 2007, Jennings was reprimanded by the Virginia Board of Medicine and paid a $10,000 fine for prescription-related violations similar to those for which he was convicted, according to state documents.