United States Drug Enforcement Administration

APR 05 - BOYNTON BEACH, FLA. - On April 5, 2017, Dr. Peter Katz, a licensed physician practicing in Boynton Beach, Florida, was arrested at his residence in Boynton Beach, on state charges of willingly and unlawfully writing a prescription for hydrocodone/acetaminophen, a Schedule II controlled substance for which there is no medical necessity.

The Drug Enforcement (DEA) West Palm Beach District Office and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s (PBSO) received complaints regarding the conduct of Katz while practicing medicine.  Katz is a data-waived physician who is permitted by law to dispense and administer narcotic drugs to drug addicts for maintenance or detoxification treatment.  In addition, a number of highly suspicious overdose deaths have been associated with Katz. This includes an overdose death of a female addict at his residence.

The DEA received information that Katz was not conducting proper patient examinations, not establishing patient files, and not taking patient medical histories prior to prescribing narcotics.  In addition, Katz was said to see patients after business hours at either his office or personal residence.

In order to use undercover techniques to investigate a data-waived physician, law enforcement must obtain a court order allowing undercover agents to meet with them.  DEA obtained this order to investigate the information against Katz.

In April 2016, Katz instructed an undercover agent to meet him at his office in Boynton Beach at 8:35p.m., well after business hours where the two met alone.  During the visit, Katz did not conduct any physical examination, did not take the agent’s blood pressure or heart rate reading, and did not ask the agent for any identification.

The undercover told Katz that his reason for the visit was to obtain “blues” (oxycodone). Katz then wrote the undercover agent a prescription for (hydrocodone/acetaminophen), a Schedule II narcotic.

“In the midst of this opioid crisis, it is unconscionable that a data-waived physician would be part of the problem and not the solution,” said Adolphus P. Wright, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Miami Field Division “DEA will always be vigilant in finding these unscrupulous medical professionals and seeing to it that they are prosecuted accordingly.”