Joshua Radcliffe, 36, of Shady Springs, a HOPE Clinic manager, was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for a gun crime. From 2010 through 2015, Radcliffe was employed with Patients, Physicians and Pharmacists Fighting Diversion (PPPFD), Inc., the company that managed the daily operations of the HOPE Clinic. Radcliffe admitted that HOPE Clinic was predominately a cash-based business and that the physicians at HOPE Clinic issued prescriptions for oxycodone to its customers not for legitimate medical purposes and outside the bounds of professional medical practice. Radcliffe worked at the Beckley and Beaver locations of the HOPE Clinic as the Clinic Manager. As the Clinic Manager, Radcliffe admitted to running the daily operations of the clinics and that PPPFD management made medical decisions that should have been made by the physicians and not by PPPFD employees. Because the customers coming to both the Beckley and Beaver HOPE Clinic locations were seeking Schedule II controlled substances to feed their addiction or to distribute illegally, Radcliffe admitted that he carried a firearm to work. He and others in management at PPPFD encouraged other PPPFD employees, especially the narcotic auditors and clinic managers, to carry firearms to work for protection because of the customers and the amount of cash coming into the clinics each day.
