Investigators say a Nassau doctor is accused of illegally selling prescriptions for opioid pills.
Officials say 74-year-old Dr. George Blatti sold paper prescriptions for cash to anyone who could afford them, without doing any medical exams.
Blatti spent more than four decades treating patients, but now the Franklin Square doctor is facing a 54-count indictment for allegedly selling prescriptions to powerful and addictive medications. The Nassau district attorney says the doctor worked out of a makeshift office in an old RadioShack in Franklin Square and out of his car in the parking lots of a Dunkin’ and Best Western in Rockville Centre.
“People have images of what drug dealers look like and they don't think of them as doctors. But let's make no mistake, he's a drug dealer,” says Nassau DA Madeline Singas.
Singas also says the investigation revealed that Dr. Blatti wrote prescriptions for nearly 2 million pills, and more than 1 million of those were for oxycodone.
The investigation began after officials say they noticed a spike in prescriptions from Dr. Blatti, along with several fatal and nonfatal overdoses, last summer.
Steve Chassman, of Long Island Council On Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, says this case isn’t anything new. “I think with any public health crisis comes crisis profiteers. This isn't the first and it won't be the last prescriber we see go to jail and be stripped of their license and, as far as we're concerned, serve as professional drug dealers,” he says.