The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Athens Police Department arrested a doctor and three of his patients Thursday after a 10th Judicial District Grand Jury indicted them on multiple charges including prescription fraud, extortion, conspiracy andfiling false reports.
The case culminated this week after the TBI’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Athens Police Department had conducted an investigation for several months.
Dr. Rodney Dunham, 56, was indicted on one count of dispensing prescriptions by fraud. He ran a walk-in clinic on Congress Parkway in Athens. The Tennessee Department of Health Related Boards suspended Dunham's license in October.
Dunham and 19-year-old Laura Cheek, of Athens were engaged in a relationship exchanging sex for prescription drugs, it was stated. Laura Cheek was charged with obtaining prescriptions by fraud, extortion, conspiracy to obtain prescriptions by fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion and filing false reports.
Her mother, Patricia Cheek, 42, of Etowah, Tn., was also indicted for obtaining prescriptions by fraud, extortion, conspiracy to obtain prescriptions by fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion. Patricia Cheek was also a patient of Dunham’s along with Laura Cheek’s neighbor, John Virgil Davis.
Davis, 26, of Athens was charged with obtaining prescriptions by fraud, extortion, conspiracy to obtain prescriptions by fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion and filing false reports. The three threatened to expose Dunham’s relationship with Laura Cheek in order to obtain prescription drugs, the TBI said.
In addition, Laura Cheek and Davis filed a police report in August alleging she had been raped. She did not name her attacker. All the crimes allegedly took place between May of 2009 and September of 2009.
All four who were arrested are in the McMinn County Justice Center. Dunham’s bond is set at $8,000, while the other three bonds are set at $25,000 each. Their arraignments are scheduled for Monday.