Chris Steward, a Cave City-based dentist and former Barren County magistrate who was indicted in a federal case in which he was accused of illegal prescribing practices, pleaded guilty Tuesday to seven criminal counts and faces 18 to 30 months in prison.

Steward, 63, who lives in Park City, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green to three counts of distributing and dispensing controlled substances outside the course of his professional medical practice, two counts of conspiring to acquire possession of controlled substances by fraud and one count each of acquiring possession of controlled substances by fraud and health care fraud.

The government will move to dismiss a count of illegal possession of another person’s identity when Steward returns to U.S. District Court to be sentenced Aug. 2.

A federal grand jury indicted Steward last month, and Tuesday marked his first court appearance before U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers.

Standing with his attorney, Steve Romines, Steward told the judge he had enough time to go over the case and the evidence against him with Romines.

Steward faced up to 67 years in prison if he had been convicted as charged at a jury trial.

“At Dr. Steward’s age … the risk of losing is almost more than you can take, no matter how good a case you may have,” Romines said after the hearing. “But there were some prescribing practices that he didn’t follow.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Weiser said the government would have presented evidence that Steward, who was also a nurse practitioner, conspired with two patients between February 2013 and July 2015 to fraudulently obtain hydrocodone, alprazolam (sold as Xanax), triazolam (sold as Halcion) and zolpidem tartrate (sold as Ambien) by writing prescriptions for those controlled substances in the patients’ names and instructing the patients to fill out the prescriptions, with the pills to be given to Steward.

On June 6, according to court records, Steward wrote a prescription for alprazolam for a patient without that patient’s knowledge or consent, and Steward obtained those pills, with the prescription paid for by Kentucky Medicaid.

Steward was also accused of fraudulently obtaining Ambien on March 6, 2015, by writing a prescription for the drug for a patient identified in court records as “A.J.” and instructing A.J. to fill the prescription and leave the pills in A.J.’s mailbox for Steward to retrieve.

Federal law enforcement also accused Steward of distributing hydrocodone outside the course of his practice, pointing to incidents on March 25, 2015, and April 13, 2015, involving A.J. that were both recorded by law enforcement.

In the earlier incident, Steward planned to write a prescription for 30 hydrocodone pills for A.J. but was requested by A.J. to write the prescription in another person’s name so that the prescription would not appear to have been in A.J.’s name when it was recorded on the Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting System, which tracks prescriptions statewide.

“Dr. Steward subsequently left the prescription in an envelope in the alley behind his office for A.J. to retrieve,” Steward’s plea agreement said.

The other incident involved A.J. telephoning Steward and asking him for another prescription.

“Dr. Steward could not recall what he had previously prescribed to A.J., and asked A.J. what he had previously prescribed,” the plea agreement said. “A.J. told Dr. Steward the previous prescription was for hydrocodone … Dr. Steward subsequently wrote A.J. a prescription for hydrocodone, and A.J. received that prescription from Dr. Steward’s office.”

Weiser said that the government will seek an as yet determined amount of restitution from Steward as well as forfeiture of the property housing his office and a 2009 Ford F-150 pickup truck belonging to Steward.

Steward was a county magistrate who ran for Barren County judge-executive in 2014, finishing third in the Democratic primary by 16 votes to primary winner and current Judge-Executive Micheal Hale.

A recanvassing and a court challenge mounted by Steward after the election did not change the results.

— Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter @jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.