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Charlotte, NC — Two Charlotte area eye doctors are in jail Tuesday after police say they conned innocent patients into bringing them drugs.
Dr. Ben Hobbs and his brother, Dr. Sam Hobbs, worked at Clear View Eye Care offices in Matthews and South Charlotte.
Officers say they were prescribing patients hydrocodone and insist patients bring the pills back to the clinic.
“That’s the first time I heard of an eye doctor giving that prescription out. So that’s bizarre,” said Nate Poole.
One of the victims tells WCCB that’s what she thought when the doctors gave her the prescription. They said she’d need it during her pink eye treatment.
Police say the doctors would write a patient a prescription for hydrocodone.
Then, they would request that the patient get the pills, bring them back to the clinic. When they did, the doctors would take a portion or all of the hydrocodone.
According to the North Carolina Board of Optometry, the doctors have no adverse actions on either of their files.
However, police files now show two victims in their wake and the numerous hydrocodone prescriptions detectives say the docotors wrote. Police say that could mean more victims.
“You best believe, hearing this story about these doctors, we are definitely going to look into whatever they give us,” said Poole.
He just hopes no one was hurt if they followed the doctors’ orders.
Both doctors are facing charges of trafficking in opiates, obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and larceny.
