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Dr. Louis Constantine Hampers, formerly the top doc of the emergency department at the Children’s Hospital, has been arrested in Virginia after a grand jury in Colorado indicted him last month in connection with a scheme to obtain powerful drugs with hundreds of falsified prescriptions.
Hampers allegedly wrote prescriptions for controlled medications—including Vicodin, a strong painkiller, and the anxiety-relieving Valium—to people with made-up names, such as “Lou Gray.” He then supposedly posed as those people in order to pick up his medication at pharmacies in the Denver and Colorado Springs areas (via 9News). In other instances, he wrote prescriptions to people he knew and then split the medication with them.
Hampers is facing one charge of conspiracy to obtain a controlled substance and 654 charges of obtaining a controlled substance via fraud and deceit. Hampers joined Children’s in 1999 and went on paid sick leave this April. Last month, he surrendered his medical license in Colorado, and Children’s says he has been removed from his post and has not provided care at the emergency department since March. He no longer has active medical privileges at the hospital.
Westword provides a full copy of the indictment against Hampers, as well as some unrelated but often-overlooked background on Hampers’ past, which includes a pending harassment lawsuit involving a 9News reporter.