Wichita — A Kansas doctor has been sentenced to life in prison for unlawfully prescribing medication blamed for an overdose death.

Steven R. Henson was immediately taken into custody following Friday’s hearing. There was an audible gasp in the packed courtroom when U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten pronounced the life sentence.

The 57-year-old Wichita doctor was convicted last year for the 2015 death of Nick McGovern.

Marten told Henson that he put his patient in a position in which he had to take those pills to get through the day.

Henson was also convicted of conspiracy to distribute prescription drugs outside the course of medical practice, unlawfully distributing various prescription drugs, presenting false patient records to investigators, obstruction of justice and money laundering.