Five Doctors Indicted For Allegedly Selling Bulk Oxycodone Prescriptions

Six investigations led authorities to arrest nine medical professionals this week, all of whom allegedly ran or helped run opioid rackets across New York City and its suburbs.

According to the District Attorney's office, they accepted cash payments or lucrative kickbacks in return for writing bulk oxcycodone prescriptions to patients who either didn't need pain killers, or exhibited obvious symptoms of addiction. The side business raked in millions of dollars, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said Thursday, unsealing five indictments and a criminal complaint against the defendants.

"These doctors and other health professionals should have been the first line of defense against opioid abuse, but as alleged in today's charges, instead of caring for their patients, they were drug dealers in white coats," District Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a press conference on Thursday. "They hid behind their medical licenses to sell addictive, dangerous narcotics."

On Wednesday evening, authorities arrested four people who operated a medical clinic in Queens: Dr. Dante Cubangbang and nurse practitioner John Gargan allegedly wrote the prescriptions for more than 6 million oxycodone tablets during perfunctory office visits, to patients their colleagues Michael Kellerman and Loren Piquant allegedly recruited. The clinic workers allegedly made $5 million in cash from these transactions, which they subsequently laundered. According to the NY Times, James L. Hunt, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office, said the colleagues split their haul the same way "a bank robber would divvy up the money after a score."

Meanwhile, in Staten Island, authorities also arrested Dr. Carl Anderson, who "prescribed nearly a million oxycodone pills to patients he knew had no legitimate medical need for the medication," per the D.A.'s office. Anderson's clinic was routinely mobbed with "pill-seeking patients," attracting large enough crowds that concerned neighbors occasionally called the police. Anderson allegedly dispensed drugs on a moment's notice, often "in the middle of the night," and knowingly sold them to one Arthur Grande (also indicted), who turned around and sold them on the street. (According to the Times, the going rate for one 30 mg. oxycodone tablet is $30 in New York City.) Although the oxycodone prescriptions proved fatal in a few instances, Anderson allegedly continued to charge patients hundreds of dollars for them.

On Thursday morning, more arrests were made in Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester, and White Plains. Manhattan psychiatrist Anthony Pietropinto allegedly charged $50 to $100 in cash for the thousands of oxycodone prescriptions to patients he knew to be addicted, instructing them not to fill the prescriptions at big chain pharmacies because the quantity would provoke suspicion and scrutiny. According to the Times, he wrote 200 patients prescriptions for about 600,000 30 mg. oxycodone pills over the course of five years, prescribing just one person 12,000 tablets during that stretch.

The D.A. alleges that Dr. Nkanga Nkanga of Staten Island traded prescriptions for thousands of dollars in cash, waiving physical examinations and in one instance, asking a patient "how many people are you representing today" before penning pharmacy orders for three others who were not present at the time. Nkanga allegedly reined in the quantity of pills he prescribed in July, only after learning that law enforcement was onto him.

Dr. Nadem Sayegh, operating in the Bronx and Westchester, allegedly accepted "expensive dinners, high-end whisky, cruises, and all-expense-paid trips," according to the D.A.—in addition to thousands of dollars in cash—for prescriptions he wrote to a variety of pseudonymous individuals, as well as some who were overseas or in prison; and White Plains pharmacist Marc Klein, who according to prosecutors routinely filled oxycodone prescriptions he knew to be bogus in exchange for money and vacations, admitting that "oxy pays the bills" for pharmacy employees, whom he characterized as "licensed drug dealers."

In 2017, synthetic opioids resulted in nearly 30,000 deaths nationwide, although according to the NY Times, the addition of fentanyl into drugs like cocaine and heroine may bring the fatality count up to 72,000. The nation remains mired in a long-running opioid epidemic attributable to a campaign by a pharmaceutical company that manufactured (among other things) oxycodone, heavily incentivizing prescription pain relievers and leading to their widespread overprescription.

The defendants, whom Hunt characterized as among "the worst villains in the fight against drug abuse" because their prescriptions helped drive addiction, have been variously charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, distribution of controlled substances, making false statements, and aggravated identity theft.