An Oakton-based doctor who admitted to improperly prescribing opioid and amphetamine pills was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison earlier this week.
David Allingham, 65, authorized renewals of medications without providing physical examinations of patients during a nearly five-year period, federal prosecutors said.
The owner and operator of Oakton Primary Care Center on Hunter Mill Road, Allingham was sentenced Wednesday (May 14) in Alexandria by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He was eligible for a maximum sentence of 20 years after pleading guilty in January.
Allingham allowed untrained office staffers to issue prescriptions on his behalf, during both in person and phone-based “office visits,” according to the Department of Justice. Between at least April 2019 and January 2024, Allingham’s office issued prescriptions for more than 405,000 oxycodone pills.
During that time, Allingham’s office also prescribed more than 13,500 amphetamine pills for weight loss purposes, regardless of the patient’s physical condition.
Due to the volume of prescriptions originating from Allingham’s office, one national pharmacy chain opted to no longer fill his prescriptions. Allingham then directed his employees to favor “mom and pop” pharmacies so he could “continue to prescribe high-dose opioids for them.”
“Multiple of Allingham’s patients died of drug overdoses within hours, days, or weeks of receiving an oxycodone prescription from Allingham,” federal prosecutors said.
Allingham’s recent legal trouble is not the first time his practices have raised ethical eyebrows.
In 1999, the Virginia Board of Medicine found Allingham had allowed unlicensed employees to prescribe medications without his advance approval. The following year, inspectors found that he had “failed to keep adequate records of drugs received and dispensed,” the Washington Post reported.
