UES Pharmacist Hit With Federal Price Gouging Charges

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An Upper East Side pharmacist known to officials as "the mask man" is facing federal price gouging charges for stockpiling N95 masks and marking up prices on the protective equipment during the height of New York City's novel coronavirus outbreak, prosecutors announced this week.

Richard Schirripa was arrested Tuesday and charged with violating the Defense Production Act, healthcare fraud, lying to law enforcement officers and aggravated identity theft, federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York said. Schirripa, 66, owns Madison Avenue Pharmacy on Madison Avenue between East 97th and 98th streets.

Prosecutors accused Schirripa of running three separate "criminal schemes" in a complaint unsealed this week. The pharmacist hoarded $200,000 worth of N95 masks and sold them at a 50 percent markup, lied to Drug Enforcement Administration on two occasions in 2020 and committed Medicaid and Medicare fraud by falsely billing prescriptions from 2014 to 2019.

Hoarding protective equipment such as N95 masks became a crime when the federal government invoked the Defense Production Act in March as cases of the coronavirus spread exponentially across the United States. Despite knowing that his actions were illegal, Schirripa boght thousands of masks and sold N95 masks that normally cost a consumer about $1.27 for as much as $25, federal prosecutors said.

Schirripa sold masks to undercover officers on multiple occasions, operating out of his car, federal prosecutors claims. During one sale, the pharmacist said: "I feel like a drug dealer standing out here," according to the federal complaint.

The pharmacist is also accused of lying to DEA agents when his pharmacy closed this year by saying that he had transferred, sold or destroyed all controlled substances in the store's inventory. Prosecutors claim that Schirripa instead kept possession of thousands of pills including fentanyl and oxycodone, which were recovered when law enforcement officials searched his Fort Salonga home.

Schirripa could face a maximum of 33 years in prison if he's convicted on all counts, accordinf to federal prosecutors.

"There is no place in our city for a licensed pharmacist to allegedly victimize New Yorkers, especially at a time when people’s priority is their health and safety," DEA Special Agent in Charge Raymond Donovan said in a statement.