Upper East Side Doctor Convicted For Pushing Opioids: Feds

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An octogenarian Upper East Side doctor was convicted Wednesday for pushing opioid prescriptions to his patients — one of whom died from an overdose — in a Brooklyn federal court.

Martin Tesher, 82, was convicted on 10 counts of unlawful distribution of oxycodone and will face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. Tesher was found guilty of running a pill mill out of his "family practice" on East 68th Street near Madison Avenue.

"Today, the jury held Dr. Tesher responsible for the part he played in fueling the opioid epidemic by abandoning his responsibilities as a medical professional and for acting as a drug dealer with a prescription pad," U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said in a statement.

Tesher was indicted in 2017 for writing more than more than 14,000 prescriptions — totaling more than 2.2 million oxycodone pills — for illegitimate purposes between June 2013 and January 2017. In some cases Tesher continued to prescribe his patients oxycodone even though he knew they were addicted to the drug or using other hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine, prosecutors said.

One of Tesher's patients, 27-year-old Nicholas Benedetto of Staten Island, died of a a drug overdose in 2016, federal prosecutors said. Tesher prescribed Benedetto with oxycodone and fentanyl without a legitimate medical purpose despite showing clear signs that he was abusing the drugs, federal prosecutors said.

None of the patients that received prescriptions for the dangerous opioids that Tesher prescribed had medical conditions that would require the drugs, a government witness testified during the doctor's trial.

“This trial brings to light how opioid traffickers can hide in plain sight, like Dr. Tesher; and how heartbreaking drug addiction is to families and friends of substance abusers," DEA Special Agent James J. Hunt said in a statement.

On his practice website — which appears to have been taken down — Tesher described himself as a "good old fashioned family doctor," with decades of medical experience.

"Although I am old fashioned in service, I deliver up to date modern medicine using state of the art technology when and where applicable. As a family physician, my interest is in caring for you and your family, and my goal is to keep you healthy and happy for a long time with good medical care, nutritional advice, and preventive medicine," Tesher's website once said.

Photo courtesy the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration