A Far Rockaway pharmacy owner was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court to five years for illegally distributing oxycodone while cooking the books.
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The owner of a Far Rockaway pharmacy was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for illegally distributing oxycodone and filing false tax returns.
Daniel Russo, 44, of Cedarhurst, Long Island, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court last February to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone, distribution and possession of oxycodone and nine counts of filing false personal and corporate tax returns.
As set forth in the indictment, court filings and during court proceedings, Russo owned and operated Russo’s Pharmacy on Cornaga Avenue in Far Rockaway. Between March 2011 and June 2014, Russo conspired with others, including medical professionals and employees, to fill fraudulent prescriptions for oxycodone and dispense thousands of oxycodone pills in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Over the course of the conspiracy, Russo’s co-conspirators delivered hundreds of fraudulent oxycodone prescriptions to Russo’s Pharmacy and would then retrieve the filled prescriptions — written out in various patients’ names — so that they could be dispensed elsewhere.
Oxycodone illegally distributed by Russo led to at least one non-fatal overdose, according to prosecutors. Russo accepted payment mostly in cash for the prescriptions. Russo then hid the proceeds from the scheme and filed false corporate income tax returns for his pharmacy for the years 2013 through 2016, omitting the illegal proceeds. Russo also filed false individual income tax returns for the years 2012 through 2016. In total, Russo failed to report over $1 million in earnings, much of it generated from his oxycodone distribution scheme. As a result, Russo fraudulently underreported his tax obligations on those earnings by over $400,000.
“From pharmacist to pill pusher, Daniel Russo…
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