Doctor Charged Cash For Writing Prescriptions For Dangerous Painkiller
Earlier today, at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York, Frank Telang, a Long Island doctor, was sentenced to 30 months in prison by United States District Court Judge Joseph F. Bianco. Telang previously pleaded guilty to illegally distributing oxycodone, a highly addictive prescription pain killer, outside the scope of his professional practice and not for any medical purpose, as well as income tax evasion for failing to report the cash income that he received from providing the oxycodone prescriptions. Telang was also ordered to forfeit $10,500.
The sentence was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brian R. Crowell, Special Agent-in-Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), New York, Thomas V. Dale, Commissioner, Nassau County Police Department, Joseph A. D’Amico, Superintendent, New York State Police, and Toni Weirauch, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, New York.
Between April 13, 2011 and Oct. 20, 2011, Telang, who maintained offices in Bethpage and Port Jefferson Station, New York, sold prescriptions for oxycodone and other controlled substances to undercover DEA task force officers posing as patients without performing any medical examination. In addition, on the night of December 6, 2011, members of a DEA Tactical Diversion Squad, comprising DEA agents, Nassau County Police Department detectives, and New York State Police investigators, observed Telang meeting with a purported patient in a parking lot near the Long Island Expressway. When approached by law enforcement, Telang crumpled up a prescription that he had been holding and attempted to hide it in his vehicle. Telang was interviewed that night by law enforcement and subsequently returned to his office in Port Jefferson Station early the next morning where he altered the medical file of that purported patient.
Telang also failed to pay taxes on the cash he received for unlawfully providing the prescriptions.
Oxycodone is a scheduled controlled substance that may be dispensed by medical professionals but only for a legitimate medical purpose in the usual course of a doctor’s professional practice. It is a powerful and highly addictive drug, and is increasingly abused because of its potency when crushed into a powder and ingested, leading to a heroin-like euphoria.
“Telang abandoned his oath to ‘do no harm’ for the motto ‘where’s the money.’ His sale of prescriptions for this addictive and deadly drug in exchange for cash not only violated his oath but constituted a serious crime," stated United States Attorney Lynch. “This sentence should serve as a warning to any physicians who would engage in such conduct." Ms. Lynch thanked the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Nassau County Police Department, the New York State Police, and the Internal Revenue Service for their invaluable assistance in the investigation.
In January 2012, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the DEA, in conjunction with the five District Attorneys in this jurisdiction, the Nassau and Suffolk County Police Departments, the New York City Police Department, and New York State Police, along with other key federal, state and local government partners, launched the Prescription Drug Initiative to mount a comprehensive response to what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called an epidemic increase in the abuse of so-called opioid analgesics. So far, the Initiative has brought over 120 federal and local criminal prosecutions, taken civil enforcement action against a pharmacy, removed prescription authority from numerous rogue doctors, and expanded information-sharing among enforcement agencies to better target and pursue drug traffickers. The Initiative also is involved in an extensive community outreach program to address the abuse of pharmaceuticals.
The government’s case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Allen L. Bode.
The Defendant:
Name: FRANK TELANG
Age: 58
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
