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Five New York doctors were charged on Thursday for running illicit prescription drug plants that flooded the state with more than 8.5 million oxycodone tablets.
The opioid pills have resulted in the death of several people and multiple overdoses, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan..
Dr. Dante Cubangbang, one of the doctors, has distributed 4.6 million tablets of oxycodone over the last six years, making the most prolific prescriber of oxycodone in the state of New York, announced the authorities.
Cubangbang operated in a pain treatment clinic in Queens, which had prescribed a total of 6.2 million oxycodone tablets, or 180 kilograms of pure oxycodone, in the last six years and generated $ 5.7 million in fees for patients over the last three fiscal years.
Federal prosecutors also charged three of Cubangbang's associates: Nurse John Gargan, Office Manager Michael Kellerman and "Crew Commander" Loran Piquant who allegedly bought pills for resale.
Gargan has prescribed 1.6 million tablets of oxycodone, according to court documents.
Despite the volume, Kellerman was reportedly filmed in August 2018, telling Gargan that he did not have enough patients given the population of legal residents and undocumented immigrants from New York City.
"There is no reason not to have patients," Kellerman said, according to court documents. "Ten million documented people living in New York and two more, three, perhaps four million undocumented … Are you telling me that you can not … get people here ? "
Dr. Carl Anderson has distributed nearly one million oxycodone tablets since 2006 from his office and home in Staten Island, according to prosecutors working in the southern New York district of Manhattan.
"Anderson often saw these so-called patients, some of whom had visible signs of addiction, without an appointment, in the middle of the night – sometimes at 3 am or 4 am – and asked them to pay hundreds of dollars in cash for each order, "say the court documents.
Federal prosecutors have also indicted Arthur Grande, described as a street vendor suspected of getting large amounts of pills from Anderson and distributing them on the street.
Anthony Pietropinto, a Manhattan psychiatrist, has prescribed thousands of pills at his office in the chic Fifth Avenue, resulting in at least one overdose death, according to court documents.
Between October 2013 and May 2018, he allegedly prescribed more than 12,000 pills to a single patient.
Pietropinto filed for bankruptcy in 2015, despite charges of $ 50 to $ 100 per cash visit, according to court documents.
Nadem Sayegh, an endocrinologist with offices in the Bronx and Westchester, has prescribed more than 50,000 oxycodone tablets. In return, he received more than $ 100,000 in patient cash payments, an "all-expenses-paid trip to Puerto Rico, cruises and luxury gifts such as high-end whiskey and expensive meals," according to reports. court documents.
Dr. Nkanga Nkanga has been accused of distributing more than 500,000 oxycodone tablets, as well as thousands of other controlled substances, including buprenorphine and alprazolam.
The investigators also swept through the probe a pharmacist identified as Marc Klein.
Klein has distributed nearly 10,000 oxycodone tablets in his White Plains pharmacy. According to court documents, he would have received cash payments, free meals and all-expense vacations in Atlantic City.
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