Methadone clinic psychiatrist in Westbrook gets six months

PORTLAND – A psychiatrist who founded a methadone clinic in Westbrook was sentenced to six months in prison Monday for his convictions last year for prescription fraud.

Dr. Marc Shinderman was convicted of writing prescriptions for controlled substances using the name and drug registration number of another physician. Shinderman, who was not licensed to write the prescriptions in Maine, said he thought the arrangement was acceptable.

Shinderman also must serve another six months of home confinement during two years of probation. U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby also ordered him to pay $35,800 in restitution.

Shinderman was a co-founder of the Center for Addiction Problems in Chicago before he came to Maine, where he started CAP Quality Care in Westbrook in 2001. It was the second methadone clinic in the Portland area.

Shinderman has a 30-year history of working with methadone, which is dispensed to addicts to curb their craving for opiates such as heroin. But the charges against him were not related to methadone, but rather to other medications that he prescribed to patients.

More than 100 former patients, colleagues, employees and friends wrote letters to the court calling Shinderman a dedicated physician and groundbreaking researcher who bent the rules to prescribe necessary medication to patients in need.

But prosecutors in court documents described him as a reckless drug provider who used generous doses of methadone and prescription drugs to attract patients to his for-profit clinic.

Shinderman had faced up to 21 months in prison for his conviction on 58 counts, including 24 counts each of using another physician’s Drug Enforcement Agency registration number and aiding the acquisition of controlled substances by deception.