Keansburg NJ Prescription Drug Case
A Rumson, New Jersey doctor was sentenced to 41 months in prison this past week for unlawfully prescribing oxycodone and for conspiracy to launder money derived from illegal drug distribution. U.S. District Court Judge Anne E. Thompson also ordered that the defendant be subject to three (3) years supervision and pay fines of $9,000. His plea agreement also included a loss of his medical license, payment of $302,000 in taxes, interest, and penalties, and forfeiture of another $120,000 to the government.
An undercover officer stated that the waiting room of this doctor's facility was worse than most drug dens. According to an assistant United States attorney on the case, this doctor wrote more prescriptions of one particular type and dosage unit of pain pill than any physician in the country. According to the article I read in the APP called "Pill Mill Doctor gets 41 months", "[o]ne patient was prescribed 2,700 powerful pain pills in just six weeks. Assuming that woman stayed awake 24 hours a day, for six weeks, she would have had to take 2.68 pills every hour of every day for six weeks to finish that prescription." The prosecutor also said that the doctor knew that patients were selling half of their prescriptions for cash on the black market and keeping the rest for themselves.
Prescription drug charges and prescription fraud cases are becoming more and more prevalent in this area. Our office handles these cases all the time. Prescription drug addiction, especially to painkillers like oxycodone, is a real problem in New Jersey and must be recognized and treated to avoid legal problems like these.
