COLUMBUS, Ohio — A doctor and two office managers have been charged with illegally distributing excessive amounts of a powerful painkiller and other drugs, leading to the deaths of at least 14 people, federal prosecutors said yesterday.A federal grand jury returned an indictment that was unsealed yesterday against Dr. Paul Volkman, 60, Denise Huffman, 54, and her daughter, Alice Huffman Ball, 32. All three were arrested Monday.

They are accused of distributing 1.5 million pain pills between 2001 and 2006 while working out of southern Ohio clinics in Portsmouth and South Point. The pills included the painkiller OxyContin and other drugs.

Volkman allegedly wrote prescriptions for excessive dosages or prescriptions for patients who did not need the drugs. When pharmacists became suspicious and refused to fill the prescriptions, the three opened their own drug dispensary centre within one of the pain clinics, according to the indictment.

The 14 who died did so after using drugs prescribed or distributed by Volkman, many from “multiple drug intoxication,” the indictment said.

The suspected conspiracy helped feed the demand for illegal consumption of OxyContin and other controlled substances in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee, authorities said.

James Rion, an attorney for Denise Huffman, denied the allegations.

“They were involved in a legal operation,” he said. “Drugs were dispensed in a lawful manner.”

It was not immediately known whether Volkman and Ball had hired attorneys.

Many of the patients at the pain clinics were drug addicts who travelled more than 400 miles round-trip, said Fred Alverson, a spokesman with the US attorney’s office in Columbus. Volkman would give the patients a cursory physical exam, charge them up to $200 per visit and write a prescription for pain medicine, the indictment alleges.