Doctor’s sleep pill scheme costs Golden attorney her law license

A Golden attorney and expert in medical ethics has agreed to hand over her law license for two years after helping a doctor friend acquire Ambien and lying to detectives about it.

Susan Fox, a sole practitioner and lawyer here since 1987, will lose her license on Dec. 11 under the terms of an agreement between Fox and state disciplinary authorities.

In addition to her law degree, Fox has a master’s in bioethics, a subject she has taught at Regis University, according to an online biography. Her legal practice focuses on end-of-life planning and other patient-advocacy matters, such as the use of experimental drugs.

In 2022, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigated an emergency room doctor in Denver for overprescribing Ambien to friends, who would then pick up the sleep drugs and give them to the doctor, according to the agreement this month between Fox and the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation, which investigates wrongdoing by lawyers in this state.

Detectives found that Fox picked up prescribed Ambien seven times in 2021, left the drugs for the doctor in Fox’s garage, and was reimbursed by her friend. Detectives were aided in their investigation by Fox’s use of her King Soopers card when picking up prescriptions.

When Tom Clemen, a DEA agent, asked Fox about that the next year, the lawyer admitted only to knowing the doctor. She repeatedly denied, during three calls over four months, to helping her acquire Ambien and said she didn’t know how her King Soopers card was used.

Fox then “contacted the doctor after every phone call she had with Special Agent Clemen and told the doctor about the conversations she had,” according to this month’s agreement.

The doctor, who is not named in that agreement, pleaded guilty to one count of drug possession in early 2023 and was sentenced to probation. She also lost her medical license.

Now it is her friend whose license will be lost. In its agreement with Fox, the Office of Attorney Regulation noted that it is a felony to lie to federal detectives, as she did. But it stopped short of recommending disbarment due to Fox’s lack of a disciplinary history, her remorse at what she had done, and her otherwise good reputation in legal and medical communities.

Disciplinary Judge Bryon Large concurred and suspended her license for two years.

Fox did not answer BusinessDen’s requests for comment on the punishment this week. She was represented in her disciplinary case by Alec Rothrock, an attorney with Burns Figa & Will in Greenwood Village, who did not answer requests for comment on Fox’s behalf.

Full story via BusinessDen

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