Oxy doc gets 5 years for pushing pills

A pill-pushing doctor was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison for doling out nearly 1 million oxycodone pills without giving most of his patients any sort of examination.

Disgraced Dr. Ernesto Lopez charged patients visiting his offices in Manhattan, Queens and Nassau County, as much as $300 cash per visit — even if they had health insurance — for the oxy prescriptions. From 2015 to 2017 Lopez (photo) wrote prescriptions for pills with a street value authorities estimated was around $20 million.

During many of his patients’ visits, Lopez performed no “meaningful physical examination” give a diagnosis. He typically prescribed 120 30-milligram tablets of oxycodone, as well as fentanyl patches. Most of his patients showed no signs they were taking the drugs, meaning they his patients were likely selling the pills, prosecutors said.

“Today’s sentence serves as a message that a doctor who doles out narcotics without regard to his patients’ medical needs and addictions is no more than a drug dealer. Lopez will serve a substantial sentence for his reprehensible conduct, having betrayed the public’s and his patients’ trust for his own financial gain,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said.

Lopez, 76, of Flushing, said in papers filed ahead of his sentencing that he’d recently suffered a stroke and that federal prisons would be unable to properly address his medical needs. His attorney Kerry Lawrence wrote that Lopez recognized he’d been convicted of serious crimes.

“The improper prescription of opioids, outside the usual course of professional practice, exacerbates a very serious drug abuse problem in our country,” he wrote.