Doc Pleads Guilty to Health Care Fraud in Federal Drug Case

BALTIMORE (AP) -- A Maryland physician who fled to Panama amid allegations he over prescribed addictive painkillers has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of health-care fraud.

Eighty-one-year-old Nicola Tauraso entered the plea Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. He faces up to 10 years in prison at his sentencing Aug. 8.

Tauraso was indicted in 2014 and arrested last July at Dulles International Airport in July as he was returning from Panama.

He left Frederick, where he operated a pain clinic, in 2010 after the state medical board suspended his license. The license was revoked in 2011.

Tauraso acknowledged he billed Medicare and Medicaid $350,000 for controlled substances dispensed through prescriptions that were not issued for a legitimate medical purpose.

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