Key takeaways about pain specialist to star athletes accused of issuing illegal opioid prescriptions

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Joan Rubinger built a prominent sports medicine practice treating some of the biggest names in professional sports. The nurse practitioner's website touts a client list that includes 169 NFL Pro Bowl selections, 29 NBA and WNBA champions and 15 Olympic medalists.

But behind the scenes, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration alleged in court filings, Rubinger secretly doled out illegal prescriptions for hundreds of thousands of highly addictive painkillers to clients in more than 20 states. Authorities allege she issued controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose and instructed clients on how to avoid scrutiny from federal investigators.

The DEA last month revoked the nurse practitioner’s authority to prescribe controlled substances, citing what an administrative law judge found to be egregious conduct. Rubinger also agreed in March to pay $1.4 million to settle a Justice Department civil complaint in which she didn't admit any wrongdoing.

Rubinger has not been criminally charged. Her spokesperson, Erick Mullen, stressed that the Justice Department pursued a civil case and suggested she had been threatened and pressured by dangerous clients.

“Joan’s case was not a criminal matter but a civil action,” Mullen wrote in an email. “No raids with blue windbreakers carrying agency initials, and no loss of liberty at stake.”

Federal prosecutors declined to explain why they did not bring criminal charges despite alleging in court filings that Rubinger violated federal drug laws and regulations 900 times.

Court papers unsealed at the request of The Associated Press reveal new details about Rubinger’s prescribing and the prominent athletes who helped build her public profile. Here are the takeaways from those records and interviews:

Rubinger, 49, was an accomplished athlete from an early age, competing internationally in gymnastics as a child. She later rowed and pole-vaulted at Syracuse University.

The nurse practitioner's life took a near tragic turn in 2015, when she fell 20 feet from a cliff while mountain biking, suffering spinal cord injuries that left her in a wheelchair.

She returned to work within three months. NBA players like Dwyane Wade wore orange wristbands in her honor, and athletes celebrated her as an inspirational figure and an important aid in their own recovery from injury.

Rubinger filled her website and social media accounts with testimonials from dozens of professional athletes.

The DEA alleges Rubinger’s illegal prescribing operation expanded over the years from professional athletes to clients who included members of an Ohio street gang, a confessed New Jersey drug trafficker and a New York City model.

New clients were required to follow instructions contained in a document Rubinger called “THE RULES,” court records show. The guidelines were intended “to minimize the attention we attract from the DEA,” she told one prospective client, according to a DEA seizure affidavit.

Investigators said Rubinger collected hundreds of thousands of dollars through a digital payment app, distributed a price list for painkillers and required clients to pay before receiving prescriptions.

Getting medication was “like at McDonald’s,” she told clients. “You gotta pay for your burger before they hand it to you.”

Authorities also allege Rubinger coached clients over an encrypted messaging app on how to prevent pharmacies from flagging their prescriptions. The DEA affidavit described the operation as “covert and slinking.”

The DEA began investigating Rubinger in 2022 after Kelly Davis, then the wife of former Carolina Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis, visited a North Carolina emergency room with chest pains.

A doctor told Kelly Davis that she had been flagged for receiving excessive pain medication. She later learned Rubinger had written 23 oxycodone prescriptions using her name, even though the medication was intended for her husband, according to the DEA and Kelly Davis.

Authorities allege Thomas Davis received more than 13,000 oxycodone and Percocet pills from Rubinger between November 2019 and March 2024.

Kelly Davis confronted Rubinger over Instagram. “This is insane,” she wrote Rubinger in a direct message, according to DEA records. “You clearly know he has a problem. Why would you do this?”

Kelly Davis reported Rubinger to the DEA, the NFL Players Association and the California Board of Registered Nursing. She said her husband’s opioid use contributed to the collapse of their marriage.

Thomas Davis did not respond to requests for comment. In a May podcast interview, however, he blamed opioid abuse for damaging his family life.

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