A New York physician was arrested on Monday after police determined that he doled out thousands of illegal prescriptions for opioids over the last several years.
Family Doctor Martin Tesher, 81, is suspected of writing as many as 14,000 illegal prescriptions. All told, Tesher handed out 2.2. million oxycodone pills over the span of 5 years.
Tesher lacked the specialized training necessary to such a high volume of pain pill prescriptions and distributed drugs indiscriminately, even giving pills to known addicts.
James Hunt, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Special Agent-in-Charge had this to say about the Doctor’s special brand of pain management:
“Dr. Tesher acted no differently than a multi-million dollar heroin ring, distributing more than $20 million worth of opioids.”
Tesher’s criminal drug ring was uncovered by an anonymous informant who told the DEA that he had been prescribed 240 oxycodone pills for a previous surgery. The anonymous informant said that Tesher continued to prescribe similar doses in subsequent trips. After Tesher discovered that the informant had been arrested, he prescribed him a lower dose, but agreed to return to the high dosage when the patient asked.
Even when Tesher believed his patients were selling the drugs rather than taking them as prescribed, he continued to write exorbitant prescriptions. Tesher’s prescriptions were so extreme that some pharmacists refused to fill them.
From DNA Info:
“Another informant told the DEA that an unknown patient in the doctor’s waiting room told him that he was getting 600 pills a month and was selling them for $35 per pill on the street.
“The male patient told [that informant] to tell the doctor that [he] was taking a lot of pills and buying them off the street in order to get prescribed a lot of pills,” the complaint states.
Tesher told the second informant that he believed the informant had an addiction problem because he was taking 15 to 30 narcotics a day, but Tesher prescribed oxycodone anyway, prosecutors said.
Other patients said they were prescribed hundreds of oxycodone pills despite being on other drugs, the complaint states.”
With such a strong wealth of evidence, it’s clear that Dr. Tesher is not going to get away with his aiding and abetting of the opioid crisis. Doctors like Tesher should be ashamed of their monumental role in the health crisis we now face as a nation.
Tesher was released from jail after posting $25,000 bail and was back to work on Tuesday. Though he is still practicing, Tesher signed a waiver which restricts him from prescribing opiates.
