80-Year-Old UWS Doc Flooded NYC With 3.2M Oxycodone Pills

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — An Upper West Side doctor and his wife will serve prison time for flooding New York City streets with millions of oxycodone pills, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Dr. Rogelio Lucas, 80, and his wife Lydia Lucas, 82, ran a pill mill out of their medical office out of 215 W. 101st St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue — writing as many as 40 to 50 oxycodone prescriptions per day at the height of their scheme, prosecutors said.

The pair flooded the city with 3.2 million pills with a value of $80 million, prosecutors estimated.

The doctor will serve one to four years in prison for fourth-degree conspiracy and 29 concurrent one-and-a-half-year sentences for criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance, prosecutors said. His wife will serve one to three years for the conspiracy charge and 29 concurrent on-year sentences for the criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance charges, prosecutors said.

"The sentence handed down by the Court today is a reflection of the serious consequences that practitioners who abandon their oaths to ‘do no harm’ should expect to face. Rather than serving the communities whose trust they had gained, Rogelio Lucas and Lydia Lucas chose instead to abuse that trust and profit off of the opioid crisis ravaging our country," Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said in a statement.

Lucas became a licensed internist in 1972 and offered legitimate medical services up until 2009, prosecutors said. Prior to 2009, Lucas' practice offered primary care services and his practice catered to elderly patients.

Between Jan. 2, 2009 and May 13, 2015, the practice underwent a transformation into an illegal pill mill, where prescriptions for the opiate oxycodone were exchanged for cash, prosecutors said. Rogerio Lucas provided the oxycodone prescriptions while Lydia Lucas served as the operation's "gatekeeper," prosecutors said.

Rogerio and Lydia Lucas were arrested in 2015 after a court-authorized review of the doctor's prescribing history revealed he wrote about 45 to 50 oxycodone prescriptions per day at the height of the practice's illegal activity.

Searches of the Upper West Side medical office and homes in Manhattan and Scarsdale resulted in the seizure of $680,000 in cash and records that indicated the couple deposited $500,000 in cash into multiple bank accounts in just one year.

Office visits that resulted in an oxycodone prescription cost $120 cash, but those that did not result in a prescription cost $80. prosecutors said. A sign in the office warned that any payments made through insurance would not result in the prescription of oxycodone.

Patients who tested negative for the drug — indicating they did not use the pills — were still provided prescriptions during office visits, prosecutors said. Once the prescriptions were filled, the pills ended up being sold on the street.

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