Colonie pharmacy settles ketamine case with fine

Fallon Wellness was “illegitimate, reckless” with sales, DEA says

A Colonie pharmacy will pay $7,150 to settle the federal government’s allegations that the business recklessly filled ketamine prescriptions for substance abuse patients that were written by two Capital Region doctors.

Fallon Wellness Pharmacy on Route 7 ignored red flags in “dispensing ketamine prescriptions that should never have been written or filled,” U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman said on Monday. The doctors who wrote the prescriptions both have criminal records unrelated to the dispensing of ketamine at Fallon, a practice that a DEA official described as “illegitimate and reckless.”

Ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, which has legitimate purposes for surgical anesthesia, is a recreational “party drug,” according to Keith Kruskall, the acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York Division. Known at times as “Special K,” the drug causes sedative and hallucinogenic effects.

In 2018, the two local physicians — Scott Mcmahon and Larry M. Bruni — began prescribing ketamine to substance abuse patients to self administer through their noses, Freedman and Kruskall said in a news release.

In 2019, the DEA arrested Mcmahon, of Clifton Park, a onetime member of the U.S. ski team, who has battled drug addiction. Mcmahon later pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Albany to unrelated charges of conspiring to distribute controlled substances and aggravated identity theft. In that case, he prescribed the generic version of

Ritalin for children to split the drugs with their father for the men’s personal use. A judge in May sentenced him to more than three years in prison.

Mcmahon agreed to pay $43,225 to settle a federal lawsuit alleging he improperly prescribed ketamine and failed to keep proper records of ketamine treatment.

On Monday, officials said when Fallon personnel asked Mcmahon what the ketamine was being prescribed for, Mcmahon told them it was to treat anxiety, depression and pain, which the workers accepted. Officials said the workers knew about Mcmahon’s arrest. When he was charged, they said, one third of Mcmahon’s ketamine patients moved to Bruni.

Bruni faced no criminal charges in the ketamine matter.

In 2006, Bruni pleaded guilty to a federal health care fraud charge in Washington D.C. Bruni, whose medical license was suspended for the conviction, later retained his medical license and began practicing in New York again in 2014, state Department of Health records show.

Federal officials said the patients receiving ketamine at Fallon were suffering from a substance abuse disorder that would have been known by Fallon’s personnel had they checked data from the state’s Internet System for Tracking Over-prescribing and its Prescription Monitoring Program, which is supposed to be checked if a suspicious prescription comes in.

Fallon continued to fill prescriptions for ketamine written by Bruni until December 2020 when the U.S attorney’s office made an inquiry, officials said.

Both Mcmahon and Bruni have admitted writing prescriptions for no legitimate medical purpose that were outside the

usual course of professional medical practice, officials said.

Bruni agreed to pay $50,000 to settle the federal government’s lawsuit in his case. He faced a complaint alleging he prescribed ketamine and Adderall, a stimulant, for no legitimate medical purposes for patients abusing drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamines.

It said Bruni prescribed fentanyl patches for a patient who later died of fentanyl intoxication.

Erika Fallon, a supervising pharmacist at the business, said in a statement that the pharmacy now knows because of the settlement that it is a red flag for any patient being treated for substance abuse to be prescribed and given any controlled substance.

She thanked the federal agencies "for their past and ongoing efforts to deter drug diversion," saying the business "will continue to support and participate in their mission. "