BATON ROUGE — A man who pleaded guilty to falsifying prescriptions while posing as a doctor has been sentenced to six months in prison, The Advocate reports. 

The paper reported that U.S. District Judge John deGravelles opted for the low end, citing the fact that Samrat Mukherjee had no previous criminal history and has continued his education since being indicted.

Following his conviction, WBRZ reported that Mukherjee, 37, could have faced five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a term of supervised release of three years for his crimes.

Between May 2019 and November 2022, the licensed paramedic claimed to be a licensed medical doctor and falsely claimed to be two doctors to procure prescriptions for himself and others.

According to federal court records, Mukherjee created a fake medical degree, a fake residency match letter and attended a celebration for his medical school graduation despite having never attended medical school.

He was also given access to several hospitals where he spent time seeing patients in the intensive care unit while wearing "M.D." and "Flight Surgeon" on his clothes and was given badges from area hospitals and Acadian Ambulance identifying him as a physician.