SAN RAFAEL — A Marin County doctor who specialized in addiction and pain treatment and served as medical director of North Bay Pain Management in San Rafael has been indicted by a federal grand jury on 15 counts of allegedly distributing controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice.
Charges were filed Sept. 4 against Michael Roger Chiarottino for allegedly unlawfully prescribing and distributing oxycodone, hydrocodone, oxymorphone, hydromorphone and methadone, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was arrested Sept. 8, appeared in court the following day and was released on $75,000 bail. He is set to appear for a bail hearing Sept. 15 before federal magistrate Donna Ryu in Oakland.
Dr. Chiarottino's medical license was suspended in May by the state medical board after he was sentenced in a Marin County court to jail for narcotics possession, driving under the influence of a drug and endangering the safety of his young child who was in the car as well. The charges stemmed from two separate DUI cases, one of them occurring while Dr. Chiarottino was free on bail from the other one.
The maximum penalty for the 14 counts of distributing schedule 2 controlled substances includes 20 years in prison and $1 million fine for each count. The maximum for the one count of distributing a schedule 3 drug includes 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
The 66-year-old Corte Madera resident was the medical director for an addiction detoxification and pain management facility. The website describes the business as providing 'short-stay medical care of alcohol, substance use disorders, and pain, provided in a safe, comfortable, confidential setting.'
Dr. Chiarottina's LinkedIn profile states that he was a board-certified, addiction-medicine physician who had practiced emergency medicine, pain management and addiction medicine for more than 20 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. He had "diplomat" status through the American Society of Addiction Medicine and is a member of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry and the American Academy of Pain Management.
