New York City indicted Rochester Drug Co-Operative, Laurence Doud III, and William Pietruszewski, on Tuesday. Doud is the retired CEO of the Rochester Drug Co-Operative. William Pietruszewski is the company’s former chief of compliance. NPR reports they are being charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled narcotics — oxycodone and fentanyl — for non-medical reasons and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
The Rochester company and Pietruszewski are also charged failing to file suspicious order reports to the DEA.
- United States Vs. Rochester Drug Co-Operative
- United States Vs. Laurence F. Doud III
- United States Vs. William Pietruszewski
Though Rochester Drug Co-Operative Inc. is one of the nation’s 10 largest pharmaceutical distributors in the U.S. But the company is small compared to the big players in the opioid scandal like Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and Johnson & Johnson.
Laurence Doud III was the CEO of the company and retired in 2017. Doud is being accused of encouraging his sales staff to bring in new customers with no questions asked, supplying pharmacies that the company knew were “illegally dispensing narcotics.”
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When Rochester’s largest customer went from buying 70,000 units of oxycodone per month in October 2012 to more than 200,000 units per month a year later, Doud had its back — overruling his own compliance officers and ordering that the pills keep flowing because it was a ‘big account,’ the indictment said.”
Fox 8 Cleveland
Doud is awaiting arraignment on two counts of conspiracy related to drug trafficking. His lawyer says Doud will be fighting the charges. Doud sued Rochester Drug Co-Operative last year claiming that the company was attempting to use him as a scapegoat for the regulatory tissues.
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Between May 2012 and November 2016, the company received and filled over 1.5 million orders for controlled substances from its pharmacy customers. However, it reported only four suspicious orders to the DEA. According to the complaint, the company failed to report at least 2,000 suspicious orders.”
NPR
This prosecution is the first of its kind: executives of a pharmaceutical distributor and the distributor itself have been charged with drug trafficking, trafficking the same drugs that are fueling the opioid epidemic that is ravaging this country. Our Office will do everything in its power to combat this epidemic, from street-level dealers to the executives who illegally distribute drugs from their boardrooms.”
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman
Related:
- Besieged by Guilt: Ex-Pharmaceutical Employees Speak Out Against the Industry
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