A Reisterstown pharmacist was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for selling 34,000 prescription painkillers to a drug dealer, the U.S. attorney's office for Maryland announced. Ketankumar Arvind Patel, 48, was also ordered to forfeit the $400,000 he was paid for the pills, which contained the powerful opioid oxycodone. Court records say that Patel, who lives in Eldersburg, told the dealer how to write phony prescriptions for OxyContin and Percocet, then filled them from his Medicine Shoppe pharmacy in the 11800 block of Reisterstown Road between 2007 and 2009. The dealer worked with Drug Enforcement Administration agents to uncover the scheme and record fraudulent transactions. Another undercover agent also bought Xanax pills from Patel using falsified prescriptions.

- Tricia Bishop