United States Drug Enforcement Administration

NEW YORK - Bridget G. Brennan, New York City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor, announced today the indictment of Alec Brook-Krasny, a former New York State Assemblyman, on four counts of Commercial Bribing in the First Degree. The charges are based on the continuing investigation into two medical clinics in Brooklyn allegedly involved in Medicaid fraud and selling prescriptions for powerful addictive pain pills. Related charges were filed in an earlier indictment in April.

Brook-Krasny is accused of directing bribes in the form of four payments to a bank account associated with the office manager of Parkville Medical, a primary care clinic in Midwood, Brooklyn. Payments came from a payroll account at Quality Laboratory Services in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, where Brook-Krasny was employed. Brook-Krasny was arraigned today before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Neil Ross. Bail is set at $100,000.

The charges are a result of an ongoing investigation by the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Prescription Drug Investigation Unit, the DEA’s Long Island District Office-Tactical Diversion (LIDO-TDS), the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human (OIG HHS), the New York City Department of (DOI), the New York City Human Resources (HRA) and the New York State Health Department’s Bureau of Narcotic (BNE). DEA’s LIDO-TDS comprises agents and officers of the DEA, Port Washington Police Department, Nassau County Police Department, Suffolk County Police Department, Rockville Centre Police Department and the Internal Revenue (IRS). 

The investigation, including a review of bank records, revealed that Brook-Krasny, via Quality Laboratory Services, allegedly made four payments totaling nearly $15,000 between August 12, 2016 and November 10, 2016 to a bank account associated with Konstantin Zeva, officer manager for Parkville Medical. In exchange for the payments, Brook-Krasny allegedly enhanced his business development by maintaining his relationship with the medical clinic and improperly receiving confidential information about patients, including names of clinics and physicians they visited.

This is the second indictment charging Brook-Krasny in connection with the long-term investigation, dubbed “Operation Avalanche.” In April 2017, nine individuals and two corporate entities were charged with schemes to illegally sell prescriptions for over 3.7 million opioid painkillers, to defraud Medicaid and Medicare of millions of dollars and to commit money laundering through two Brooklyn medical clinics owned by Dr. Lazar Feygin. The defendants were charged with a combined 309 counts. These charges were the result of an investigation that involved the use of court-authorized (some of which included Russian language conversations), physical surveillance, interviews with patients and former employees, analysis of medical records, consultations with medical and insurance industry experts, and a review of financial records associated with the clinics and other related corporate entities.

The alleged chief architect of this multi-million dollar scheme, Dr. Feygin operated Parkville Medical and a second clinic, LF Medical, and employed a series of doctors, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners to illegally prescribe oxycodone and order unnecessary medical procedures. FEYGIN also employed office manager Konstantin Zeva, the individual whose bank account allegedly received payments from a Quality Laboratory Services payroll account.

Beginning in late 2016, the lion’s share of drug urinalyses ordered by Feygin’s clinics was handled by Brook-Krasny at Quality Laboratory Services. Brook-Krasny allegedly directed laboratory testing of specimens sent from Parkville Medical and LF Medical for which Quality Laboratory Services was reimbursed by Medicaid and Medicare.

Brook-Krasny also arranged for laboratory test results to be altered to remove contraindications for opioid prescribing. For example, patients prescribed opioids are instructed not to consume alcohol because there is a high risk of overdose. Yet, urinalysis testing of patients at Feygin’s clinics routinely came back positive for alcohol. Rather than preventing these patients at Feygin’s clinics from receiving opioid prescriptions or switching to a non-opioid pain reliever, the alcohol-related results were systematically deleted by Brook-Krasny, as discussed in a series of phone calls in October 2016, so that doctors would not balk at continuing the opioid prescriptions.

An indictment unsealed in April charged Brook-Krasny with Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, Health Care Fraud in the Second Degree, Scheme to Defraud and Scheme to Defraud by Unlawfully Selling Prescriptions. Konstantin Zeva was also arrested at that time and charged with numerous crimes, including charges of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, Criminal Sale of a Prescription for a Controlled Substance, Health Care Fraud in the First and Second Degrees, Grand Larceny in the First and Second Degrees, Scheme to Defraud and Scheme to Defraud by Unlawfully Selling Prescriptions.

Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan thanked her office’s Prescription Drug Investigation Unit, the DEA’s Long Island District Office, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human (OIG HHS), the New York City Department of (DOI), the New York City Human Resources (HRA) and the New York State Health Department’s Bureau of Narcotic (BNE). The Port Washington Police Department, the Nassau County Police Department, the Suffolk County Police Department, the Rockville Centre Police Department, the Internal Revenue (IRS), New York/New Jersey HIDTA, DEA’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Fusion Center and the New York County District Attorney’s Asset Forfeiture Unit assisted in the investigation.

The charges and allegations are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.