Pharmacist charged in theft of 200k pills
Print Edition
A major New York hospital’s former pharmacy chief stole nearly 200,000 oxycodone pills from the medical center over more than five years and has been charged under a state drug-kingpin law.
Anthony D’Alessandro was arrested early yesterday and awaiting arraignment. City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan’s office is still investigating what became of the drugs but believe they ended up on the thriving black market for prescription painkillers, where the more than 193,000 missing pills could fetch a total of about US$5.6 million.
While serving as Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s pharmacy director for 14 years before his firing this spring, D’Alessando exploited his access to the hospital’s drug vault to grab oxycodone pills by the score: about 100 at a time when he started in January 2009, but 1,500 at a go by the time the scheme came to light this spring. Hospital officials first approached him on April 1 about the disappearing drugs, and he signed out another 1,500 pills the next day.
To account for the missing medicine, D’Alessandro made phony entries in an electronic inventory system to indicate that the drugs were being sent to a research pharmacy within the hospital, prosecutors said. The pharmacy wasn’t doing any oxycodone research at the time, and its staffers were unaware of the phony requisition slips.
D’Alessandro, 47, was facing charges including a major drug trafficking offense that carries the potential for life in prison.
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