Akron native Frank Lazzerini, once a respected doctor with a thriving practice in Jackson Township, left the Stark County Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon as a felon.
After hearing testimony for nearly five weeks, a Common Pleas Court jury backed the prosecution’s stance that Lazzerini irresponsibly prescribed medications, documented exams that never happened and defrauded Medicaid.
Lazzerini, 41, of Barberton, was convicted of 187 out of the 272 charges he faced from his February 2018 indictment. The jury found Lazzerini guilty of charges including involuntary manslaughter, for prescribing drugs that the jury found killed Jaimie Hayhurst of Canton in 2014; Medicaid fraud, for seeking higher reimbursements than he was entitled to from Medicaid; engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiring with his medical practice to commit the above crimes and dozens of aggravated drug trafficking and drug trafficking counts, for prescribing medication to patients for an illegitimate medical purpose and beyond the standard medical care.
Source: Former Stark County doctor guilty of 187 charges / Akron Beacon Journal