"Hospital pharmacist allegedly stole pills" Associated Press July 09, 2014
NEW YORK — A major hospital’s former pharmacy chief stole nearly 200,000 oxycodone pills from the medical center over more than five years and has been charged under a state drug-kingpin law more often aimed at accused street dealers, narcotics prosecutors said Tuesday.
Anthony D’Alessandro pleaded not guilty Tuesday. His lawyer, Joseph Sorrentino, said D’Alessandro is no drug lord, but rather a man who told a hospital investigator he had had a drug problem.
City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan’s office is still investigating what became of the drugs but believes they ended up on the thriving black market for prescription painkillers, where the more than 193,000 missing pills could fetch a total of about $5.6 million.
‘‘This case underscores the vigilance required when addictive medication with a high resale value is readily available — even to licensed professionals and trusted employees,’’ Brennan said in a statement.
Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s pharmacy director for 14 years before his firing this spring, D’Alessandro is accused of exploiting his access to the hospital’s drug vault to grab oxycodone pills on nearly 220 different dates: about 100 at a time when he started in January 2009, but 1,500 at a time when the scheme came to light, Brennan’s office said. Hospital officials first approached him April 1 about the disappearing drugs, and he signed out another 1,500 pills the next day, prosecutors said.
To account for the missing medicine, D’Alessandro made phony entries in an electronic inventory system to indicate that the drugs were being sent to a research pharmacy within the hospital, prosecutors said. The pharmacy was not doing any oxycodone research at the time, and its staffers were unaware of the phony requisition slips, according to prosecutors.
--more--"
Of course it is medical marijuana that is the real problem.
