{London, Kentucky}...During a hearing in U.S. Distinct Court in London Thursday, 55 year old James Marsillett, II of Floyd County was sentenced to 20 years in prison for operating a continuing criminal enterprise. An October 2009 drug roundup resulted in the arrest of more than 500 people. Prosecutors say Marsillett faced the most serious charges. Marsillett had earlier admitted that, from 2007 to 2009, he funded monthly trips for numerous co-defendants to see Dr. Michael Shook who worked at Lauderhill Medical Center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and prescribed large quantities of Methadone and Oxycodone. The patients Marsillett sent to Shook paid approximately $2,000 for an MRI, a doctor’s visit and the prescription and gave Marsillett half the pills they obtained which he then sold in eastern Kentucky. Court documents shoe that, in 2006 and 2007, Marsillett traveled with others to Urgent Care pain clinics in Cincinnati and Philadelphia to obtain Methadone pills for distribution in eastern Kentucky. Marsillett will have to serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. All of the 36 defendants who faced federal charges have been convicted. Dr. Shook was sentenced to four years in federal prison last year for unlawfully dispensing Oxycodone.
