Evil opioid docs
5 charged with getting big bucks to push fetanyl
A LUCRATIVE scam enjoyed by five Upper East Side doctors included six-figure kickbacks, cocaine, booze, strippers and weed, prosecutors charge.
The sordid details were spelled out Friday in a federal indictment charging the doctors with collecting huge sham speaking fees as payback for over-prescribing a highly addictive fetanyl spray.
The benefits for doctors Gordon Freedman and Todd Schlifstein included an October 2013 strip club extravaganza where a senior pharmaceutical exec spent $4,100 on liquor and lap dances, officials charged.
Freedman, a certified pain management practitioner, collected more than $300,000 in phony fees from pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics, according to court papers.
In the last three months of 2014 alone, the 57-year-old Mount Kisco resident wrote $1.1 million of prescriptions for the spray (pictured), authorities charged.
“These prominent doctors swore a solemn oath to place their patients’ care above all else,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman.
“Instead, they engaged in a malignant scheme to prescribe fentanyl . . . in exchange for bribes in the form of speakers fees.”
All five pleaded not guilty, and were expected to walk free after posting a $200,000 personal recognizance bond. The so-called speakers programs, pitched as educating other doctors with a slideshow about the spray, were often just parties hosted at pricey restaurants, officials charged.
Schlifstein was so bombed at some of the events that he slurred his words, and co-defendant Jeffrey Goldstein smoked pot and snorted cocaine before or during his appearances, the 75-page indictment charged.
In addition to Freedman, the doctors were identified as Goldstein, 48, of New Rochelle; Schlifstein, 49, of Manhattan; Dialecti Voudouris, 47, of Queens (not pictured); and Alexandru Burducea, 41, also of Queens.
“We look forward to a resolution of the charges in his favor,” said Burducea’s lawyer Nicholas Kaizer.
Prosecutors also revealed that a pair of pharmaceutical salesmen cooperated in the case against the physicians. Insys did not return a call for comment.