Utah Physician Barred From Prescribing

What Happened

A federal judge entered a consent order in November 2022 permanently barring Utah physician Dr. Sean Ponce from issuing prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances. The government's complaint alleged he catered to customer requests for opioids, at times using text messages to arrange the exchange of prescriptions for cash, and used virtual office space in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, to maintain the guise of a medical practice. The order requires a $65,000 civil penalty and prohibits him from dispensing controlled substances or owning a practice that handles them. The claims were allegations only.

“requires Dr. Ponce to pay a $65,000 civil penalty.”
U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Nov 1, 2022

Related Guidance

15 Red Flags of Drug Diversion — Behavioral and transactional indicators of diversion.
Investigation Playbook — How to investigate suspected diversion inside an organization.

Sources

U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Nov 1, 2022

Case at a Glance

Setting: Medical practice with virtual office space
Drug: Opioids and other controlled substances
Method: Alleged prescriptions exchanged for cash, arranged by text message, without legitimate examinations
Status: Consent order entered November 2022: permanent bar on controlled substance prescribing and $65,000 civil penalty; no determination of liability

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

What this case shows

Where this record connects to the site's working material. Links are chosen from the case's setting, drug and method fields.

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Last reviewed: September 2026 · Educational content, not legal advice.

About the author

DivertGuard is built and maintained by Alex Rodriguez, MHIIM, CPhT (also known as Jesus Rodriguez) — a drug diversion prevention program manager with more than a decade in pharmacy practice, including direct responsibility for a health-system controlled substance diversion prevention program.

Conference presentations

2025 — The Rounding Revolution: A High-Tech Approach to Diversion Prevention (with Emily Spiceland, PharmD)
2024 — No Pill Left Behind: Strategies for Comprehensive Drug Accountability (with Eric Andrews)
2022 — Ready for My Close Up! Implementing, Maintaining, and Expanding Drug Diversion Prevention Cameras (with Jeremy Quinn, Shawn Young, and John Bailey)

Other professional engagement

Faculty, ASHP Drug Diversion Certificate
Speaker, Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA)
Published author, Pharmacy Purchasing & Products

Credentials

Doctorate candidate — Doctor of Health Informatics (DHI), Rutgers University, School of Health Professions; research on health data analytics and the prediction of cognitive decline
MHIIM — master's in health informatics, University of Tennessee Health Science Center (2019–2021)
CPhT — Certified Pharmacy Technician, with 10+ years of pharmacy practice across retail, hospice, compounding, home-health, and hospital settings

The assessment items, weighting, and case registry behind this site come from that operational background — building and running a diversion prevention program, not from vendor marketing. Every tool here is free, requires no signup, and is based on published regulatory and professional standards (DEA, Joint Commission, ASHP, CDC).

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Related Resources

Diversion Settlements & Fines

Settlements, civil penalties and criminal fines paid by hospitals and pharmacies in documented drug diversion cases, with the amount, year and primary source for each

Penalty Outcomes in the Case Records

Counts of the outcomes the registry records state: prison, probation, fines, licence actions and restitution, with stated sentence lengths by band and by drug class

Registry Insights: Sentences, Fines, States and Outcomes

Sentence lengths, fines and restitution, cases per 100,000 pharmacists by state, and plea and licence outcomes, each counted from the case records with its n, plus charts of cases by year, state and drug class

Utah Physician Barred From Prescribing Controlled Drugs