Passaic Co. Women Plead To Helping Doctor Distribute Opioids Illegally

PATERSON, NJ — Two women have pleaded guilty to helping a North Jersey doctor write prescriptions for thousands of pain pills "without a legitimate medical reason."

Last October, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced charges against Dr. Lisa Ferraro of Hillsdale, who is accused of prescribing oxycodone to people who were not her patients. Officials said Ferraro, who saw patients at HVA Medical Group in Paterson, never physically examined these people or asked them about their symptoms before writing the scripts.

Sellinger's office said 32-year-old Jasmine McGregor and 35-year-old Jhenelle Lewis, of Paterson, both admitted that they conspired with Ferraro to prescribe oxycodone.

Both pleaded guilty to a charge of knowingly and intentionally conspiring and agreeing with others to distribute a controlled substance, outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.

Ferraro also faces a charge of conspiracy to commit opioids, and officials said she "typically wrote prescriptions for 90 pills of 30mg oxycodone each, which were typically split three ways among Ferraro, a conspirator who recruited the fake patients, and the fake patients themselves."

One of the recruited "patients" had been in the Hudson and Passaic County jails and was reportedly one of Ferraro's clients for almost two years, investigators said previously.

This person was prescribed more than 5,300 pills despite never having been examined, officials allege. Another pill recipient "was incarcerated in a federal prison in Alabama," court documents show.

Officials said McGregor and Ferraro collaborated between July 2022 and Oct. 2023, when the doctor wrote prescriptions for "approximately 630 20-milligram oxycodone pills and approximately 11,410 30mg oxycodone pills." And, authorities said that over the course of the conspiracy with Lewis, Ferraro wrote prescriptions for approximately 9,450 30mg oxycodone pills.

Ferraro has not entered a plea in court.