Oxycodone Pill Pushing Queens Pharmacist Gets 5 Years In Prison: Feds

QUEENS, NY — A pill pushing Queens pharmacist will spend the next five years in prison, authorities said.

Daniel E. Russo, 44, learned his sentence in a federal courtroom Wednesday — more than a decade after prosecutors said he launched a scheme to peddle oxycodone pills from his Far Rockaway pharmacy.

The drug scheme netted Russo hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, authorities said.

"From pharmacist to pill pusher, Daniel Russo betrayed his years of medical training to pocket dirty money in return for illegally selling enormous amounts of oxycodone, which was invariably later sold on the streets," said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, in a statement.

Russo, along with other medical professionals, conspired from March 2011 to June 2014 to fill fraudulent prescriptions for oxycodone, authorities said.

The prescriptions netted thousands of pills, which led to at least one non-fatal overdose, prosecutors said.

Russo, who accepted cash for the scripts, hid his earnings from the government by filing false tax returns, authorities said. Much of his $1 million in unreported earning came from his pill dealings, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty to drug and tax charges in February, and paid more than $400,000 in restitution before his sentencing.