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Group used phony prescriptions to fool Rich Hill pharmacy: AG

Group used phony prescriptions to fool Rich Hill pharmacy: AG
By Rich Bockmann

Authorities broke up an illegal prescription-drug dealing outfit that allegedly used forged scripts to buy oxycodone pills at more than half a dozen pharmacies in the city and the Hudson Valley, including one in Richmond Hill, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced last week.

The gang’s suspected ringleader, 49-year-old John Bland, of the Bronx, supplied his accomplices with phony prescriptions he wrote on stolen forms and drove them to pharmacies in the city and Orange County, where they would purchase the pills and hand them over to Bland, Schneiderman said.

During a span of three days last March, alleged accomplice Paul Perez twice walked out of Dale Pharmacy and Surgical Inc. in Richmond Hill with 240 of the addictive pain killers and handed them over to Bland, according to the criminal complaint.

All told, the crew bought thousands of pills, with a street value in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which Bland allegedly sold to bulk drug dealers before the authorities put an end to the scheme, the AG said.

“My office will do everything in its power to crack down on the criminals who use fake prescriptions to fuel dangerous addictions and illegally traffic in prescription narcotics,” Schneiderman said. “Cases like this are exactly why my office fought to pass New York’s historic I-STOP prescription drug abuse prevention law. Illegally profiting off the addiction and suffering of others is a crime, and the kingpin of this operation and his accomplices will now be held accountable.”

Passed last summer, the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing Act requires the state Department of Health commissioner to create a system for tracking controlled-substance prescriptions in real time and does away with most paper forms in favor of e-scripts.

Schneiderman said the system does not go online until August, but had it been in place, it would have prevented Bland from allegedly using stolen and forged prescriptions.

Bland was indicted in Orange County on 30 counts of operating as a major trafficker, conspiracy criminal possession of a controlled substance, a forged instrument and stolen property, according to Schneiderman, and could face up to 25 years to life in prison.

His five alleged accomplices were also arrested on charges of conspiracy and criminal possession of a controlled substance and a forged instrument, for which they could each face nine years in jail.

Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.