Welcome to Dr. Plotka's Funhouse

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Alabama doctor caught in opioid sting recruited prostitutes as patients, feds say

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Around dinner time on November 15, 2018, Huntsville police arrived at a quiet cul-de-sac in Hampton Cove to find a 20-year-old woman, scantily clad, who appeared to be hallucinating on a front porch that wasn’t hers. She said people in the house were trying to kill her. Neighbors went over to help and someone dialed 911.

She’d been living with the homeowner, a doctor, and sharing his bedroom, according to court documents filed last week as part of a federal sting. The woman told officers she was on methamphetamine.

She’d been the doctor’s patient since 2015.

That incident was one of at least 35 times Huntsville police were called to the 65-year-old doctor’s home.

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Last week, Plotka was arrested in what federal prosecutors called the largest prescription opioid prescriber takedown in U.S. history. The sting spanned five states and caught eight Alabamians in its snare.

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While most of those other Alabamians arrested on charges like overprescribing and healthcare fraud, Plotka stood out for the wild details in his case: prostitutes as patients, lines of heroin on his kitchen counter, overdoses and thefts and missing spoons.

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In February 2018, police found a 30-year-old woman at Plotka’s house who had overdosed on heroin, according to the federal complaint. She’d been spending the night there. Paramedics took her to Huntsville Hospital.

After investigators obtained medical records and text messages, they found she’d been Plotka’s patient since 2013.

Less than two months after that overdose, Plotka texted with the same woman about buying heroin for her, according to the complaint.

A month after that overdose, another 911 call came in. This time it was a 22-year-old man who had overdosed on heroin and methamphetamine. Paramedics arrived to find Plotka administering CPR, according to the police dispatch report. They revived the young man with Narcan and took him to Huntsville Hospital, according to the complaint.

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Two weeks after that, Plotka’s girlfriend texted him: “Can u get any Xanax I know u know some1 I can’t get high from anyone’s boy:(” (Boy is a slang term for heroin, according to the complaint.)

“What makes you think I know a Xanax source?” he texted back, adding a grinning emoji.

“Ur pad,” she texted.

“You mean, Dr Plotka’s Fun House?” he responded.

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Plotka has been licensed to practice medicine in Alabama since 1982. He received his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine.

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