MEQUON, Wis. — A 69-year-old Mequon physician was sentenced Thursday, Oct. 1, to 27 months in federal prison for illegally prescribing controlled substances in exchange for cash, federal prosecutors said. He was also ordered to repay nearly $300,000, the amount prosecutors said he earned through the scheme. Jerry Jones III pleaded guilty after Drug Enforcement Administration investigators found he had written prescriptions for drugs including Ritalin and Xanax to people who contacted him by text and paid through services such as Cash App and Venmo, according to the case summary. Jones, who had worked for decades in emergency rooms, began operating from his Mequon home in 2021 as a purported addiction-treatment specialist, prosecutors said. Court documents described people he called patients as drug customers. Prosecutors said he charged hundreds of dollars to send prescriptions to pharmacies without conducting examinations or reviewing medical histories, and based his decisions on whether customers could pay. Prosecutors said Jones supplied stimulants, opioids and benzodiazepines to people with substance-use disorders over more than four years, distributing hundreds of thousands of controlled substances. His medical license has since been revoked. In court filings, Jones argued that he followed virtual-visit standards during the COVID-19 pandemic, but acknowledged he had not made himself compliant with current regulations. Prosecutors said he had deflected responsibility and argued that he knowingly violated his medical oath for profit. Jones must report to federal prison on a date that has not yet been set.