A Massapequa physician accused of writing more than 1,500 phony prescriptions for the painkiller Oxycontin and other medications since last October pleaded not guilty Monday.

Dr. Richard Morgan was arraigned on two conspiracy counts in U.S. District Court in Central Islip and was ordered held pending a bail hearing on Tuesday. Morgan faces at least 20 years in jail and more than $1 million in fines if convicted.

Morgan, an internist with offices in Massapequa and New York, sold prescriptions for Oxycontin and other narcotics primarily to a group of Oxycontin distributors and users who operated out of the Smithtown and Kings Park areas of eastern Long Island, according to an indictment unsealed Monday in federal court.

David Miller and Justin Faello are accused of helping Morgan distribute the narcotics.

"The fact that a doctor was willing to sell prescriptions for this highly dangerous drug demonstrates the seriousness of the Oxycontin problem," U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said in a statement.

Prosecutors said that between October 2006 and May 2007, Morgan would conduct a "cursory examination" of the "patients," who initially claimed to be suffering from chronic pain. He would then write them prescriptions for Oxycontin, they said. Eventually, Morgan was writing prescriptions - at a cost of several hundred dollars each - for people he never met, prosecutors said. Two of Morgan's "patients" overdosed on the drugs, they said.

In one case, Morgan, 35, was accused of taking approximately $6,000 a month from one person for phony prescriptions. Hundreds of the prescriptions were filled at a pharmacy in Levittown, where a search warrant executed Monday yielded financial records and other information, prosecutors said. No charges were immediately filed against the pharmacy.

Morgan's attorney did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Monday.

AP wire reports contributed to this report.