Hanover doctor sentenced to federal prison

Mechanicsville doctor Torino R. Jennings was sentenced to a year and one day in prison today for writing 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 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 between 2004 and 2007 for SOMA -- a muscle relaxant -- and other drugs without meeting or examining the patients. He prescribed the drugs based on brief forms completed by clients for online pharmacies.

The online pharmacies, in turn, paid Jennings between $5 and $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 Hospital in Richmond. His privileges to practice there have been permanently suspended, a spokeswoman said.

-- Mark Bowes