Noel Blackman gets 50 months in jail
– forfeits US$536,200 from oxycodone sales
US-based Guyanese doctor Noel Blackman was yesterday sentenced to 50 months in prison by New York Judge Joanna Seybert for conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, a controlled substance.
The sentence is lower than the 57 to 71 months that was being sought by acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Bridget M Rohde, who felt that such a sentence would have been sufficient for the crime and to act as a deterrent for other doctors.
According to Long Island Business News, along with the 50-month sentence the court also imposed on Blackman three years’ supervised release and the forfeiture of US$536,200 in illegal proceeds.
The sentencing followed his guilty plea on August 24, 2016. Blackman was once Guyana’s Health Minister under the former PNC administration.
“Today’s sentence should send a clear message to other doctors and medical professionals that when they abandon their oaths and act as drug dealers, we will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” Rohde was quoted as saying in a statement.
“Blackman violated his professional oath to put his patients’ legitimate medical needs first, and instead chose to line his pockets with the proceeds of sales from oxycodone, which has ravaged communities in New York City and on Long Island,” she added.
Blackman’s lawyer, John Bergendahl, had pleaded for him to receive a lower sentence than the 57 to 71 months set out in the sentencing guidelines, citing the contributions he made to charity, among his reasons.
There were also three testimonial letters, including one from Guyana’s National Director of Community Development Councils Eugene Gilbert, detailing Blackman’s contributions to society, his good upbringing and character, while asking for leniency on his behalf.
Disregard
Prior to the sentencing, the prosecution, responding to Bergendahl’s plea for a lower sentence, said that for disregarding his duties to his patients and the public, Blackman should receive a 71-month sentence, which would also serve as a deterrent to other physicians.
Rohde also argued that the sentence imposed should reflect the “seriousness of the offence, to promote respect for the law .... ”
It was pointed out that not only was only Blackman a well-established physician, he was also a former health minister of Guyana and had even completed a legal degree; yet he still went ahead and illegally prescribed the drug to patients, some of whom he knew were addicted.
Going back over some of the details of the case, Rohde pointed out that Blackman displayed little regard for the patients who frequented the “pain management” clinics he operated in New York. By his own admission, he believed some the persons were “addicted” to oxycodone yet he issued 2,487 prescriptions for more than 365,000 30mg oxycodone pills.
Speaking about his “prestigious” background, Rohde said that despite his medical position and legal acumen Blackman did not dispute that he issued prescriptions for the drug to individuals who had no medical need, simply to earn profit.
“In short, this acclaimed physician with legal training chose to abuse his medical licence to engage in drug dealing,” she said in a document seen by this newspaper.
‘Egregious’
As regards his many medical conditions, as put forward by his lawyer, it was pointed out that Blackman was 68 years old with those conditions and was involved in charitable works when he committed the crime.
“Yet none these factors – alone or in combination – was sufficient to deter Blackman from knowingly and intentionally abusing his medical licence to illegally write oxycodone prescriptions for money,” the document stated.
Likewise, none of the factors justifies a below-Guidelines-range sentence, Rohde argued.
Further, it was pointed out that Blackman’s selfdescribed selflessness did not extend to admitting his crimes before his arrest. It was noted that when he was removed from his oneway flight to Guyana, Blackman had opened yet another pain management clinic in Brooklyn after the US Customs and Border Patrol officers seized prefilled prescriptions from his secretary as she returned to New York from Guyana and after one of his clinics was shuttered because of building code violations.
The prosecutor also listed cases of other doctors who received heavy sentencing for similar offences and argued that Blackman’s conduct was
“egregious” because it was motivated by “greed despite a salary averaging approximately US$250,000 per year between 2004 and 2014 and despite having substantial assets with a combined net worth of more than US$1.5 million.”
On February 25, 2016, a US grand jury indicted Blackman and Wascar Castillo, the former office manager of his Queens’ pain management clinic, for conspiracy to distribute and distribution of oxycodone.
Castillo, who was jointly charged in New York with Blackman for conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, has been jailed for 36 months. His sentence was handed down on March 31, 2017.
Blackman has lost his licence to practice medicine in the US and because he is not a US citizen, is likely to be deported on completion of his sentence.