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I don't think it was the prescription violation? Didn't they claim he was dealing the pills out, and that's why he got such an insane sentence?
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Punishing Pain
What followed was a legal saga pitting Mr. Paey against his longtime doctor (and a former friend of the Paeys), who denied at the trial that he had given Mr. Paey some of the prescriptions. Mr. Paey maintains that the doctor did approve the disputed prescriptions, and several pharmacists backed him up at the trial. Mr. Paey was convicted of forging prescriptions.
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Here's the real issue:
He was subject to a 25-year minimum penalty because he illegally possessed Percocet and other pills weighing more than 28 grams, enough to classify him as a drug trafficker under Florida's draconian law (which treats even a few dozen pain pills as the equivalent of a large stash of cocaine).
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For you that's the real issue. Someone questioned whether he was convicted for forging prescriptions and apparently he was. I dug up this story:
Richard Paey Story
In Florida, the illegal possession of certain prescription painkillers -- in amounts more than 28 grams, enough to fill less than two bottles -- is considered drug trafficking. The penalty is equivalent to that meted out to hard-core heroin dealers -- a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. Prosecutors convinced a jury that Paey had forged enough prescriptions to qualify as a drug trafficker. He is barely a year into serving the sentence.
I think the following is also relevant and is part of the story:
Before his first trial date in 2001, Paey declined a deal of pleading guilty to a lesser offense and accepting house arrest and probation -- but no prison time. But Paey said he could not plead guilty to a crime he insists to this day he did not commit.