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Frank Lazzerini, once a respected doctor with a thriving Jackson Township practice, left the Stark County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon as a felon.

After hearing testimony for nearly five weeks, a Common Pleas Court jury backed the prosecution’s stance that Lazzerini irresponsibly prescribed medications, documented exams that never happened and defrauded Medicaid.

Lazzerini, 41, of Barberton, was convicted of 187 out of the 272 charged he faced from his February 2018 indictment. The jury found Lazzerini guilty of:

    • Involuntary manslaughter, for prescribing drugs that the jury found killed Jaimie Hayhurst of Canton in 2014.
    • Medicaid fraud, for seeking higher reimbursements than he was entitled to from Medicaid.
    • Tampering with records, maintaining medical records with fake diagnoses and documentation for exams that never happened.
    • Grand theft for stealing as much as $150,000 from Medicaid.
    • Engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiring with his medical practice to commit the above crimes.
    • Dozens of aggravated drug trafficking and drug trafficking counts, for prescribing medication to patients for an illegitimate medical purpose and beyond the standard medical care. Because the amount prescribed was large in many cases, the jury also found him guilty of the specification of being a multiple drug offender nine times, which could add significantly to his prison sentence.
    • Illegal processing of drug documents, for writing illegitimate prescriptions.

Several of the convictions are first-degree felonies that each carry a potential sentence of three to 11 years in prison.