Feds charge dentist over opioid prescriptions
Accused of writing oxycodone prescriptions to feed own habit
A Woodstock dentist with an admitted “substance abuse problem” has been charged with illegally prescribing controlled substances “exclusively for her own personal consumption” and “for no legitimate medical purpose,” according to federal investigators.
Vivian Letizia, 62, of Stone Ridge, who practices dentistry at 2 Maverick Road in Woodstock, was arrested Tuesday on a criminal complaint charging she wrote prescriptions for oxycodone for four individuals and filled those prescriptions herself at pharmacies in Ulster County, Acting U.S. Attorney Antoinette T. Bacon said in a press release Wednesday.
Oxycodone is an opioid painkiller that can be highly addictive.
Letizia also allegedly ordered 2,800 oxycodone tablets delivered to her dental practice — for her own consumption, outside the course of professional practice, and for no legitimate medical purpose, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Prosecutors say that when Letizia spoke with an investigator at her Woodstock office on Feb. 12, she said the prescriptions, “were totally for me. I didn’t, uh, I’m not flooding the streets with narcotics. … I have a substance abuse problem.”
The purchases were made between April 2018 and January 2020, according to the criminal complaint filed Friday, Sept. 18.
According to the complaint, Letizia’s scheme began to unravel in December 2019, when she sent two prescriptions for “Individual #1” to the CVS pharmacy on Ulster Avenue in the town of Ulster. After Individual #1 failed to pick up the prescriptions, a pharmacist called him, and In
dividual #1 replied that he lived in Queens and was not aware of the prescription, the complaint states.
The following day, according to prosecutors, Letizia went to the pharmacy and tried to pick up the oxycodone, saying she would deliver it to her patient. The pharmacist refused to give her the medication and contacted the state Department of Health’s Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, the complaint states.
A subsequent investigation found Letizia allegedly filled or tried to fill, at four different pharmacies in Ulster County, prescriptions for a total of 148 oxycodone pills written for Individual #1 and three other people.
Investigators learned Individuals 2, 3 and 4 also had been patients of Letizia and were treated by her but had not required narcotic drugs in the course of their treatment, the complaint states.
Additionally, investigators said, between March 2018 and February 2020, Letizia ordered 2,800 oxycodone tablets for her own consumption that were delivered directly to her Woodstock practice.
If convicted, Letizia faces up to 20 years in prison, a maximum fine of $1 million
and at least three years of post-release supervision.
Letizia appeared Tuesday in Albany before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel J. Stewart, and was released with conditions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Letizia’s dental office was open Wednesday but she could not immediately be reached for comment. According to the state Department of Education, Letizia remains a licensed dentist “in good standing.”