A doctor who admitted to using dead patients’ names on prescriptions for drugs he took himself will spend the next two years on probation.

Dr. Paul Biddle was an anesthesiologist and pain management doctor who also operated a medical marijuana practice in Orchard Park.

Between 2015 and 2017, he wrote 33 prescriptions for controlled substances, using the names of deceased patients, and used the drugs himself.

The prescriptions were filled by a Florida-based pharmacy and mailed to his home.

"We felt it was appropriate because there was no evidence that he unlawfully distributed these drugs,” said U.S. Attorney James Kennedy. “He obviously had an addiction. Today's sentencing is, as Dr. Biddle himself recognized, shows the dangers of addiction and that no one is immune from it."

Biddle could have received up to five years in prison.