LSO: Local physician arrested for buying back thousands of pills from patient

The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office has arrested a local physician after he was found to be buying back prescription pills from his patient.

After a months-long investigation, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office has arrested two people after they were found to be involved in an illegal drug scheme.

Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner says 54-year-old Keith Hughes, a physician from Lincoln, and 32-year-old Colby Digilio were arrested Tuesday afternoon.

The investigation into the scheme began in January, when the Sheirff’s Office received a tip that Hughes was prescribing a large amount of Oxycontin pills to Digilio.

Tuesday afternoon, Digilio was picking up a prescription of Oxycontin written by Hughes at a pharmacy in Lincoln. Deputies made a traffic stop and found Digilio to have 8 Oxycontin pills, a pistol and over $900 in cash with him.

Later that day, Hughes was also stopped and arrested after deputies found him with 80 Oxycontin pills.

The investigation found that Hughes was using Digilio as a means of getting Oxycontin pills for his personal use, prescribing the drug to him 63 times in two years, for a total of 4,232 pills.

Digilio would pick up the prescriptions then meet up with Hughes, who would then buy back pills for himself.

Digilio was arrested for the possession of a controlled substance and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony, and Hughes was arrested for possession of narcotics with intent to deliver and obtaining drugs through fraud. Both were lodged in the Lancaster County Jail.

The two had a previous relationship through Digilio’s lawn care and snow removal business, Green Expectations. The transition to a doctor-patient relationship is still unclear.