A 73-year-old psychiatrist from Cape May County plead guilty to 17 felony charges for issuing invalid prescriptions for drugs such as Adderall, Vyvanse and Xanax to his sex partners and known drug abusers, the District Attorney’s office announced on Wednesday. Louis Morelli, who was a licenses psychiatrist practicing in Smithville, New Jersey, faces up to 51 years in prison after pleading guilty to 17 counts of causing, with the intent to defraud and mislead, prescription drugs to be dispensed without valid prescriptions, prosecutors said. Investigators said that Morelli not only wrote the invalid prescriptions, but gave them to people he was having sex with and/or people who were known drug abusers, prosecutors said. “On some occasions, Morelli wrote the prescriptions in exchange for sexual activities, images, or videos.  For example, one of Morelli’s patients sent a message asking for a prescription drug, and Morelli responded with. ‘Your ass for my script…lol.’ Morelli engaged in similar conversations with other patients, while issuing prescriptions and engaging in sexual activities with them,” prosecutors wrote in a press release.  Morelli also prescribed medicine to people even after he had been told that the person was using them to the point that threatened their life or serious bodily injury. In one instance, the mother of a patient told Morelli that her son was abusing the medication he was prescribing him, but continued doing so, prosecutors said. “For example, in 2019, Morelli received a message from a patient’s mother that the patient was abusing the drugs that Morelli had prescribed. The mother wrote that the patient had stopped breathing the day before,” prosecutors wrote. “A couple of months later, Morelli learned that the same patient ‘took a lot of Xanax and drank some beers,’ ‘took 50 benzos in a short amount of time,’ and ‘told a friend’ the patient planned ‘to shoot up.’ The patient’s mother also warned Morelli that the patient was ‘grooming’ him to ask for prescriptions and asked Morelli to stop prescribing the drugs. Despite these communications, Morelli continued to prescribe the drugs to the patient.” Law enforcement officers had also told Morelli that some of his patients were potentially using his prescriptions to resell them illegally, but he continued to prescribe them, prosecutors said. Morelli faces up to three years in prison for each count he plead guilty to, with a maximum of 51 years behind bars, prosecutors said. Morelli has surrendered himself to authorities and his psychiatric license, prosecutors said. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 27, 2026. ...read more read less