New Charges For Wrestler's Doctor

ATLANTA -- Dr. Phil Astin, the doctor previously charged with supplying drugs to professional wrestlers, is facing dozens of new charges in federal court.

According to an indictment handed down Thursday afternoon in federal court in Atlanta, Astin faces at least 175 charges related to consipracy and the illegal distribution of drugs including Percocet, Ritalin, Oxycontin, Demerol, Xanax and others.

Astin was initially charged in July 2007 in a federal criminal complaint and then a seven-count indictment for illegal distribution of prescription drugs, including Percocet, Adderall, Lorcet, and Xanax, to two patients.

The indictment also says that the prescription drugs dispensed by Astin resulted in death or serious bodily injury to one patient. In addition, the indictment says that Astin wrote and filled 16 prescriptions for medications in the names of two patients without their knowledge.

"Since the initial indictment in this case, investigators have carefully reviewed hundreds of patient files and interviewed dozens of witnesses, and we now see a much broader picture of the disturbing and dangerous distribution of prescription drugs. The superseding indictment alleges that Dr. Astin illegally distributed prescription drugs in many ways to many patients, whether by providing multiple, undated prescriptions for the same drug on the same day, writing prescriptions for inappropriate combinations of drugs, or feeding the methadone addictions of patients for months or even years," said US Attorney David Nahmias.

Astin was initially investigated after wrestler Chris Benoit killed his family and himself last year in Fayetteville.

Astin was Benoit's personal doctor. Investigators in the Benoit case found anabolic steroids in the wrestler's home, and said that Benoit had ten times the normal amount of testosterone in his system when he died.

Stay tuned to 11Alive and 11Alive.com for updates and details as they become available.