(WBIR) - A new trial date has been set for the woman who federal prosecutors have called "the largest drug dealer to ever set foot in a courtroom in East Tennessee."
Accused pill mill mastermind Sylvia Hofstetter, 51, now will face trial in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Tennessee in Knoxville in June 2016, according to defense attorney Richard Escobar. Trial setting was made Thursday in a U.S. District Court hearing.
Escobar, of Tampa, Fla., had sought more time to prepare for trial because of the volume of evidence being gathered by the government in its investigation of Hofstetter and her alleged operation.
The trial had been set for May, although with Hofstetter having been indicted only a few months ago, it was highly unlikely the trial would go forward on its first setting.
Escobar is handling Hofstetter's case along with DeeAnn D. Athan, also of Tampa. David Eldridge of Knoxville represented the defendant briefly earlier this year.
Hofstetter remains in jail on a magistrate judge's order because she is viewed as a potential flight risk. She's facing a potential 20-year prison sentence if convicted in the case.
In 2011, she moved to the Knoxville area from Florida to start up and to oversee pain clinics.
The government alleges the operation turned into pill mill operation in which people willing to pay illegally got prescription drugs while Hofstetter and others made a fortune.
Hofstetter alone enjoyed a $1.2 million-a-year lifestyle, prosecutors allege. The defense argues the government's claims are exaggerated and that the defendant lived an upstanding life and has no criminal record.
Several dozen defendants who the government says are related to the scheme, including some employees, also have been indicted.
Escobar said Thursday there's been "a lot of ugly publicity" about his client's case and that all the facts have yet to emerge. He told 10News the evidence will show she had "no direct involvement in the allegations the government claimed were illegal."
"She was not the director of any of these clinics," he said. "She had no hands-on supervision of these employees."
