Pill-peddling doctor tried to hire a hitman to kill colleague, Arizona prosecutors say

An Arizona doctor who lost his medical license for prescribing Ritalin to a patient he’d never seen thought he knew who had fingered him, authorities say.

Glenn Gary Robertson put out word that he was looking for a hitman to do away with the colleague whom he suspected, the state attorney general’s office says in a release.

But the person whom Robertson ended up bargaining with to carry out the hit, using a rifle provided by the ex-doctor, turned out to be an undercover federal agent, the release says.

What’s more, the agent was part of a team already looking into an Oxycontin-peddling ring involving the former Benson physician, the attorney general’s office says.

In a plea deal, Robertson will serve 12.5 years in prison for attempted murder concurrent with nearly nine years for racketeering, followed by seven years for illegal narcotics. A sentencing hearing will be held Jan. 27, the release says.

Robertson partnered with a local drug dealer to illegally sell Oxycontin prescriptions in Cochise County from February 2017 to November 2018, the release says.

In December 2018, Robertson lost his medical license over the Ritalin prescription and began trying to arrange a hit on his colleague, the attorney general’s office says.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration found out about those efforts in 2019 during an ongoing investigation into the Oxycontin scheme, the release says.

This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Pill-peddling doctor tried to hire a hitman to kill colleague, Arizona prosecutors say."