The Pharmacist: Who Is Jacqueline Cleggett? (& Where Is She Now?) (2024)

In Netflix's documentary series The Pharmacist, what began as one man's quest to find his son's killer quickly unraveled into an unofficial investigation and discovery of Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett and her shady medical business that was harming the community of St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans, Louisiana. The series begins as an unofficial investigation led by small-town pharmacist and activist, Dan Schneider, into finding his teenage son's killer. Schneider is successful, and 15-year-old Jeffery Hall is given a 15-year prison sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to manslaughter. In a true-crime documentary, this would normally be where the story ends.

However, this was just the beginning of Schneider's investigative journey in The Pharmacist, as shortly after Hall pleaded guilty, Schneider noticed an unusual rise in opioid prescriptions, particularly for the drug OxyContin. Using the skills he gained from finding his son's killer, Schneider began a second investigation into this rapid increase in OxyContin prescriptions, which eventually led him to discover Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett and her suspicious medical clinic that was prescribing the drugs. While the docuseries goes in-depth about everything that happened in this time period, there are still some lingering questions such as who Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett is, how she got Schneider's attention, and what happened after her arrest.

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Jacqueline Cleggett Is A Former Doctor

Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett was born on August 9, 1962, and grew up in Moss Point, Mississippi. She attended Morehouse School of Medicine where she received her medical degree and began her career as a family physician before transitioning into a job at Gulf South Medical Consultants, specializing in soft tissue exams (via Nola). She eventually quit her position at Gulf South claiming that the work at the organization was "too demanding", so after receiving her degree from the American Academy of Pain Medicine, she opened a medical clinic in New Orleans and advertised herself as a pain management specialist (via Oxygen).

However, while on the outside Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett's pain management clinic appeared to be a legitimate, properly certified business, in practice, as Schneider would point out in the documentary, she ran her place of operation in suspicious ways. Cleggett's office was often open until around 2 A.M., payments were always in cash, and she was willing to provide prescriptions of OxyCotin in high dosages to anyone regardless if they had any conditions to warrant such a prescription. Between 2000 and 2001, she earned over half a million dollars by prescribing thousands of OxyContin bottles.

How Jacqueline Cleggett Got Pharmacist Dan Schneider's Attention

Schneider's newfound detective skills suddenly became necessary again because as a small-town pharmacist, he noticed an unusual surge in patients with prescriptions for OxyContin, most of which he discovered were written by Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett. He noticed that many of the prescriptions she wrote were similar, often prescribing 40mg or more of Oxycontin (via TIME). This was especially dangerous because, according to Schneider, many customers didn't show any symptoms of pain or illness, and even if they did have such conditions, the drugs prescribed were too strong.

Once Schneider caught these prescriptions, he began cautioning patients about the dangers of such high dosages, but he was mostly ignored. Between 2000 and 2001, OxyContin abuse became a national, widespread issue that was affecting the United States, and St. Bernard Parish became one of the most active areas for the epidemic as the community had one of the highest per capita overdose rates in Louisiana. Frustrated with what was happening, Schneider teamed up with the FBI, the DEA, and Louisiana authorities to launch an investigation into Dr.Jacqueline Cleggett, and she was eventually caught.

Jacqueline Cleggett Has Largely Disappeared From The Public Eye

Things got worse for Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett as she not only had her medical license revoked by the medical board in 2002, but Schneider's investigation also uncovered that her "pill mill" business extended beyond Louisiana, and that she was also selling OxyContin to a group of people in Mississippi, who would then sell the drugs throughout the state (via Nola). 17 people involved in the operation were arrested and in 2007, Cleggett was charged with illegally distributing OxyContin and other drugs between June 2000 and February 2002 and faced up to 20 years in jail with a $1 million fine.

In 2009, Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett struck a plea deal by pleading guilty to illegally dispensing controlled substances. This allowed her to avoid jail time, she was ultimately only sentenced to three months probation. Ever since then, aside from giving a sit-down interview in the final episode of The Pharmacist, providing her side of the story and denying any sort of wrongdoing she may have committed or contributed to, Jacqueline Cleggett has remained largely out of the public. The last known public record of Cleggett's whereabouts stated that she was living in an apartment in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana.