Ex-Ohio doctor pleads guilty in pain-clinic case

COLUMBUS (AP) — An ex-Ohio doctor has pleaded guilty to illegally using her medical license in a scheme to distribute hundreds of thousands of painkillers.

Today’s guilty plea by Brenda Banks comes one day before three of her co-defendants in an alleged pill mill case go on trial.

Banks was named in a 2010 indictment that alleged employees at a southern Ohio pain clinic illegally filled dozens of cash-only prescriptions a day.

Banks pleaded guilty to an updated charge that alleged she helped clinic operators and employees use her medical license to order nearly 220,000 pills of the painkiller hydrocodone.

Banks worked at Ohio Medical and Pain Management in Waverly.