Former Mt. Pleasant, Perryopolis doctor gets prison for illegally prescribing drugs, having sex with patients

Dr. Emilio Navarro told the court he made a mistake.

It was a mistake that he made dozens of times over four years. A federal indictment against Navarro, a longtime family physician who practiced in Mt. Pleasant and Perryopolis, said he wrote prescriptions for painkillers and Xanax to two patients who he forced to engage in sexual acts with him.

Navarro, 60, of Coal Center, Washington County, pleaded guilty in October to unlawfully dispensing controlled substances and health care fraud. On Tuesday, after hearing from one of the victims and listening to argument from both sides, U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan ordered Navarro to serve 18 months in custody followed by three years of supervised release to follow and pay a $5,000 fine.

He’s already given up his medical license. He is allowed to self-report to prison.

“I apologize to God, to the victims, to everyone here, my family, my kids,” Navarro told Ranjan. “I’m a man who made a mistake. I’m not a criminal.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Cessar disagreed.

“This isn’t a mistake. This isn’t a horrible situation. This isn’t a marital transgression,” Cessar said.

Instead, the prosecutor said, Navarro took advantage of vulnerable women repeatedly.

“I do find that you are remorseful,” the judge said. “It’s unfortunate you’ll never be able to practice medicine again. That’s certainly a significant part of the punishment you face and have to endure.”

The woman identified in the indictment as Victim No. 1 said Tuesday in court that she was severely injured during a brutal mugging in 2005. She began seeing Navarro and, in 2009, he placed her in a pain management program, prescribing her Percocet and later a combination of oxycodone and oxymorphone, the government said.

After becoming addicted, the woman asked Navarro for help weaning off the medication, but he said it wasn’t necessary, the prosecution said.

When she arrived at Navarro’s office for an appointment on April 2, 2018, the government said Navarro began to hug and kiss her and then touched her sexually. She resisted, and the appointment ended with Navarro writing a prescription for both oxycodone and oxymorphone.

Fearing no one would believe her, the woman wore a wristwatch with a camera feature to her next appointment on April 30, 2018, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum. She also took her children with her hoping that would dissuade him from touching her.

Video recorded by the woman showed Navarro entering the exam room and then escorting the woman to his office, leaving the children behind. He then locked his office door and forced the woman to perform oral sex on him.

When she left the appointment, Navarro wrote prescriptions for her. That continued through April 2019, according to the indictment filed against him.

On Tuesday, the woman said much of her life was “lost to this disgusting individual,” referring to Navarro.

She said she was young, healthy, happy and a vibrant wife and mother before becoming addicted to painkillers. That all changed when she became physically and psychologically dependent on the drugs.

“You did not simply trade (drugs for sex) because that implies consent,” the woman wrote in her statement.

She told the judge that she was in a completely inferior position, and Navarro took advantage of that and her trust.

“The only fair remedy for this crime is for you to lose everything I have lost,” she said.

Navarro was initially charged by a federal grand jury in September 2019, but another patient came forward in March 2020 and additional counts were filed, including that he prescribed painkillers and Xanax to her from 2015 to 2019 in return for sex.

In his statement to the court, Navarro said that since giving up his medical license, he has been working at a car dealership during the day and delivering pizzas at night.

“I just want to get my life back,” he said. “I want the victims to know I’m really sorry.”

Navarro told the court that he believed he suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from being exposed to trauma as a physician, and that is what led to his actions.

Several people submitted letters to the court on his behalf, including patients who described him as kind and caring.

John R. Halloran, who initially saw Navarro for pain, said the doctor helped him get weaned off of painkillers he’d been taking for almost eight years. He said Navarro then helped him as he fought throat cancer.

“In all my 55 years, I have never met a more caring, professional and committed doctor,” Halloran wrote. “I can’t imagine where I would be if not for him. I honestly believe he saved my life.”

Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey told the judge that Navarro had thousands of patients and excelled at being a physician.

“All these people who wrote letters in support of my client can’t be wrong,” he said. “This is a good man, judge, and he’s really sorry for what he did.”