Druggist pops plea

Jail in $ 5M pill heist

The former chief pharmacist at Beth Israel Hospital, accused of stealing $ 5.6 million in painkillers, took a plea deal in a Manhattan court Wednesday that will send him to prison for five years.

Anthony D’Alessandro, who was the hospital’s pharmacy director for 14 years, copped to four counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance and forfeited his pharmaceutical license, authorities said.

He stole nearly 200,000 oxycodone pills with a street value of $ 5.6 million from the hospital between January 2009 until he was fired in April 2014, according to the office of the city’s special narcotics prosecutor, Bridget G. Brennan.

D’Alessandro usually stole about 100 at a time in the early days of the scheme, officials said.

But he had ramped his haul up to 1,500 a pop by the end, prosecutors said.

His lawyer had argued that D’Alessandro is a drug addict, not a dealer.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner remanded the disgraced pharmacist, who had been out on $ 500,000 bail, pending his sentencing July 23.