Federal prosecutors havefiled condemnable chargesagainst drug distributor Rochester Drug Cooperative ( RDC ) and two of its former executive , operations manager William Pietruszewski and CEO Laurence F. Doud III , in what theWashington Post reportedis the first time the feds have place legal painkiller wholesalers for contributing to the opioid epidemic .
Prosecutors allege the executives ship tens of gazillion of oxycodone pills , as well as other drugs like the powerful man-made opioid fentanyl , to pharmacies that they fuck were not distributing them legally from 2012 - 2017 . Historically , authorization have used civil penalties rather than the criminal justice system of rules to go after dispersion party that fill suspicious orderliness of drugs . But as theNew York Times notes , the felony drug trafficking charges the two men are facing are essentially the same as ones the feds might bring against manipulator of a wholly illicit drug combine .
RDC is the sixth large pharmaceutical distributer in the U.S. and distributes to hundreds of pharmacies across much of the Northeast , Reuters write .
Former Rochester Drug Co-Operative CEO Laurence Doud III, right, leaving U.S. District Court in Manhattan with his attorney Robert C. Gottlieb, center, on 8 May 2025.Photo: Kathy Willens (AP)
According to the Times , the charges against the RDC as a corporate entity are “ conspiring to lot drug , confederacy to defraud the United States , and failing to file suspicious monastic order report . ” While public prosecutor did strike an accord to void prosecution that requires RDC pay a $ 20 million amercement , agree to five years of supervision by an self-governing monitor , and otherwise follow with control substances law , the Times write , the company did have to allow that it advisedly broke federal drug laws .
Doud and Pietruszewski are both being in person charged with the two counts of conspiracy to allot drugs and conspiracy to defraud the government , while Pietruszewski is also facing the extra flush regarding leery order reports .
Pietruszewski has pleaded guilty and will cooperate with the feds , the Post write .
Doud , who is strike out and is contesting the bearing , will be in royal court Thursday ; the indictment aver that as Doud looked the other way , the RDC describe just four of 3,000 suspicious orders for oxycodone and fentanyl to the Drug Enforcement Agency . public prosecutor added that consignment to one pharmacy reported to be RDC ’s good client “ grew exponentially ” as Doud raked in bonus pay , according to the Post , while at another pharmacy over 60 percent of customers ( almost all of whom were out - of - state ) make up in cash .
Doud ’s attorney , Robert C. Gottlieb , secern the Times that “ Mr. Doud is being framed by others to cover up their misconduct . The political science has it all wrong . He will fight these charge to his last breather and he will be vindicate . ”
TheCenters for Disease Control estimatesthat some 218,000 hoi polloi died from “ overdoses related to prescription opioids ” from 1999 to 2017 , with that destruction charge per unit five sentence higher in 2017 than 1999 . One subject area in the American Journal of Public Health last year estimated that the tally of all opioid - relate deaths over the next decadecould reach 510,000 . AsWired noted , some researchers consider pharmaceutical party have contributed immensely to the epidemic because more powerful ( and thus potentially more harmful ) synthetic interpretation of opioids , like fentanyl , are easy to traffic without attracting the tending of authorities and thus have proliferated .
U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Bermansaid in a statementthat “ today ’s charges should send shock wafture throughout the pharmaceutic diligence reminding them of their use as gatekeepers of prescription medication . ”
Both executives could face maximal sentences of life in prison house and a mandatory minimal sentence of 10 years on the drug trafficking bursting charge , per NPR , as well as a maximum five years on charge of defrauding the government .
Hundreds of causa against pharmaceutical companies demand in opioid manufacturing or dispersion are pending . Purdue Pharma , the maker of OxyContin , latterly settled a lawsuit that claim itaggressively marketedthe drug while downplaying the risks to the tune of $ 270 million , and has been cover to beflirting with failure . There are presently more than 1,600 opioid - related suit of clothes pending against pharmaceutical company in state and federal courts , according to Stat News , with some legal proceeding independently in country court but most consolidate into a individual , monolithic federal character in Ohio .
[ Washington Post ]
HealthMedicineopioid crisis
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