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A federal judge told a Lubbock doctor who admitted to writing out prescriptions for pain medication on stolen prescription sheets last year that he wasn’t placing her on probation for her benefit.

“I’m giving you enough rope to hang yourself with,” U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings told Brianne Williams, 39, Friday after he placed her on probation for five years. She is also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.

Cummings told Williams he’s seen many people come before his court in the same situation.

“Most of those people have failed to make it,” he said.

He told her if she returned to making bad choices, she would find herself before him or another judge and “the outcome will not be favorable.”

Williams pleaded guilty in October to a count of acquiring a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception or subterfuge. She faced up to four years in prison.

The probation was recommended by federal prosecutor Jeff Haag, who said he believed Williams’ was motivated by her “horrible addiction.”

He also said Williams’ support structure would likely prevent her from relapsing.

Before Cummings’ judgement, her attorney, Dan Hurley told the judge Williams was another victim of the opioid epidemic. He described his client as an intelligent woman who believed she could avoid becoming addicted to the opioids she was prescribed about eight years ago after a surgery.

“She was way wrong,” he said.

Hurley said his client’s battle with addiction has led to trouble with the law in the past.

She was arrested in 2012 for obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, after which her medical license was suspended and she voluntarily surrendered her Drug Enforcement Administration registration to prescribe controlled substances, according to court records.

That case resulted in a pre-trial diversion, Hurley said.

Her licenses were restored in 2015.

In June 2018, as Williams was renewing her DEA registration, an investigator flagged a prescription for Dilaudid, an opioid painkiller, written out to Williams a month before by one of her colleagues.

The colleague denied to the investigator she wrote the prescription for Williams, who sent her a message saying she “made some big mistakes” and admitted to stealing pre-signed prescriptions from her.

DEA investigators later found prescriptions for Dilaudid from Williams’ colleagues prescription pad written out to Williams’ father and one of her former patients in March and May 2018. However, video from a pharmacy’s security cameras showed Williams picking up prescriptions for the painkiller.

Her medical license was suspended in March of this year, according to Texas Medical Board records. She will be able to request to lift the suspension once she demonstrates she is fit to practice medicine, which includes a year’s worth of clean drug screens.

“She overcame significant obstacles to achieve her goal of becoming a doctor,” Hurley said in court. “Losing (her medical license) is so regrettable to her.”

Hurley called on Bob Howell, a counselor at The Ranch at Dove Tree, who told the court he believed Williams, who he has known for eight years, has a better chance of succeeding because she has access to better tools at maintaining her sobriety.

Hurley said his client hopes to use her story to help others in recovery.

“I think many people who have a very difficult time in recovery, if they can help others start into recovery, break the cycle of addiction … and by being an example to them, it helps them stay clean,” he said after the hearing.

Williams also addressed the court before she was sentenced and apologized for her actions, which she blamed on her addiction.

“My actions have caused so much suffering,” she said. “I do not want to return to that place ever again.”

Williams said her sobriety is her priority and she would accept the judge’s decision.

“Wherever God places me, he’ll have a job for me to do,” she said.