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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — A doctor with a practice in Niles is accused in federal court of trading sex with patients for drugs.

A bill of information was filed Monday in the U.S. Northern District Court of Ohio against Jeffrey Sutton, charging him with dispensing and distributing controlled substances and health care fraud.

An arraignment date has not been set yet. A bill of information is typically filed when a defendant is expected to plead guilty.

The bill said Sutton runs the Internal and Physical Medicine Clinic in Niles. He is accused of illegal conduct between 2015 and 2022 with at least seven patients.

The bill said he was writing prescriptions for opiate-based medications for extended periods of time with no change in a patient’s regimen and was prescribing drugs based on vague claims that had no basis in fact.

The bill also accuses him of ignoring signs that patients were abusing or selling the drugs they were given and that he would give drugs to certain patients he had sex with without a prescription.

He is charged with health care fraud because he was giving patients drugs or scheduling visits with patients even though there was no necessary medical reason to do so, according to court documents.