YOUNGSTOWN Area doctor pleads guilty to illegally selling drugs

The doctor illegally sold prescription drugs in the 1990s.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A judge found a 76-year-old doctor guilty of 30 counts of trafficking in drugs, but spared him from serving a potentially lengthy jail sentence.
Dr. Skevos M. Zervos of Vienna pleaded guilty Tuesday to the 30 misdemeanor counts of illegally selling a variety of diet and painkiller pills.
Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court found him guilty and sentenced him to six months in jail for each count. But the judge suspended the jail sentence and placed him on probation. The doctor must surrender his medical license.
Zervos was accused of illegally selling a variety of prescription drugs including Demerol, Percocet, Tenuate, Fastin, Adipex and Dexedrine in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 1999, his indictment says.
His office on Market Street in Boardman was raided in June 1999. He was originally indicted in November 2000.
But that indictment was dismissed by Judge Durkin in October 2002 because it failed to specify that Zervos was acting outside the scope of his position as a health-care professional when he administered the drugs.
He was indicted on the same charges later that month.
In 1980, the Ohio State Medical Board placed Zervos on two years' probation for improperly prescribing drugs.