Rochester Drug Cooperative executives charged in opioid crisis

NEW YORK - Law enforcement officials have long tried to stem the opioid crisis in America with criminal charges for street dealers and cartel kingpins who traffic in drugs like fentanyl and oxycodone.

Now, for the first time, federal authorities are bringing the same kind of felony drug-trafficking charges against a major pharmaceutical distributor and two of its former executives for their role in fanning the crisis.

Prosecutors said the former executives at the company, Rochester Drug Cooperative, ignored red flags and shipped tens of millions of oxycodone pills and fentanyl products to pharmacies they knew were distributing drugs illegally. Their sales soared, as did the compensation of the chief executive.

“Why did they do it?” asked Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who announced the charges at a news conference. “Greed.”

Berman said the case was the first of its kind and vowed his office would “do everything in its power to combat this epidemic, from street-level dealers to the executives who illegally distribute drugs from their boardrooms.”

The government’s novel tactic was expected to reverberate through the pharmaceutical industry, where large corporations and senior executives have long escaped criminal culpability for the epidemic of overdoses from prescription painkillers, like oxycodone.

On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Rochester Drug Cooperative, or RDC, as a corporate entity with conspiring to distribute drugs, conspiracy to defraud the United States and failing to file suspicious order reports.

But the corporation entered into an agreement under which the government will hold off on prosecuting the company on the charges as long as it pays a $20 million fine, complies with the controlled substances law and submits to five years of supervision by an independent monitor.

As part of the agreement, however, the company, the nation’s sixth largest distributor, admitted in court papers that it intentionally violated federal narcotics laws by shipping dangerous, highly addictive opioids to pharmacies, knowing that the prescription medicines were being sold and used illicitly.

The two former company officials, Laurence Doud III and William Pietruszewski, were also charged with conspiring to distribute drugs and defrauding the government.

Pietruszewski, 53, who was the chief compliance officer, was also charged with failing to file reports to authorities about suspicious orders for controlled substances. He pleaded guilty last week and is cooperating with prosecutors.

Doud, 75, the former chief executive officer, pleaded not guilty late Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and was released on a $500,000 bond. If convicted, Doud faces a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison.