Jessica Joyce Spayd, 51, of Eagle River, Anchorage, Alaska, United States is an advanced nurse practitioner who specializes in pain management and addiction treatment. She owned Eagle River Pain and Wellness in Eagle River.
Between January 2014 and October 2019, Spayd prescribed nearly 4.5 million opioids to 450 patients with little to no medical justification, treatment plan, tests, physical examinations and considerations of non-opioid treatment. The illegal prescriptions caused addiction, suffering and death.
When Spayd was out of the office, she routinely pre-signed and pre-dated prescriptions and instructed non-medical staff to distribute the prescriptions to patients for a cash fee. Her excessive opioid prescriptions drastically exceeded medical norms.
Moreover, Spayd illegally prescribed nearly 5,000 opioid pills to her boyfriend, who was addicted to opioid. She wrote the names of other individuals who were outside Alaska on those prescriptions and created false appointment records for those other individuals.
Between May 2019 and July 2019, Spayd prescribed nearly 200 opioid pills in three appointments to an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent posing as an opioid addict with no current pain symptoms in exchange for large cash payments. In a recorded conversation with the undercover agent, she acknowledged that she could go to jail because what she was doing was a felony.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Alaska charged Spayd by indictment in October 2019 and with a superseding indictment in January 2021. In 2020, she surrendered her nurse practitioner license to state authorities.
Alaska’s Betty Stonefield, Ellen Kubiak, Julianne LeBoeuf, Kathleen Butcher and Loren Dirks neither had terminal cancer nor were in hospice. They all died from overdosing on pills prescribed by Spayd, assistant U.S. attorney Ryan Tansey told the federal jury in opening arguments on October 24, 2022.
The trial was delayed due to the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. On October 28, 2022, the jury convicted Spayd on one count of maintaining a drug involved premises, four counts of distribution and dispensing of a controlled substance and five counts of distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death.
CONAN Daily 