(Long Island, NY) A Nurse Practioner indicted for selling Oxycodone and other prescriptions for cash was convicted on Monday, June 29 after a seven-week trial in Riverhead of criminal sale of a prescription charges, two counts of conspiracy and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said.
District Attorney Spota said the 2012 investigation of the criminal sale of prescription painkillers in Suffolk culminated in the indictment of the defendant Ingrid Gordon-Patterson, 49, of Patchogue.
Nurse Practioner Ingrid Gordon-Patterson, 49, of Patchogue, was convicted of criminal sale of a prescription charges, two counts of conspiracy and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. Photo Credit: SCPD.
Gordon-Patterson faces a prison term of up to 25 years when she is sentenced on July 29 in Riverhead.
“The Suffolk County police Narcotics Section and our office seized office records – and an unregistered, loaded, .38 Titan Tiger Revolver – during the execution of a search warrant at her medical office in Deer Park three years ago. That evidence established that she was running one of the largest “pill mills” in Suffolk County, if not the metropolitan area,” District Attorney Spota said.
The district attorney said Gordon-Patterson betrayed her professional responsibility as a licensed medical professional “to operate as a drug dealer running a criminal enterprise for astronomical cash profits”, selling prescriptions for 30 Oxycodone for $250 cash.
“She sold over 1,100 Oxycodone tablets per day from June 11, 2011 to June 6, 2012; over 413,000 doses of Oxycodone that Gordon-Patterson issued prescriptions for over nearly a year’s time,” DA Spota said. At the time of her indictment in 2012, Oxycodone, most commonly prescribed for the treatment of long-term pain from back injuries, arthritis and other conditions, was the most commonly diverted prescription medication sold on the street, selling for $20 per 30 milligram tablet.
A Suffolk County special grand jury investigating painkiller abuse in 2012 reported that Suffolk County had almost twice the state average in cash prescriptions for oxycodone. The special grand jury said the increase in arrests and overdose deaths related to painkillers in Suffolk were the product of the overprescribing of painkillers by doctors and other medical professionals and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on lawmakers and physicians.
The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Defendants are entitled to a fair trial with the burden on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
