ALBANY, N.Y. – Vivian Letizia, age 63, of Stone Ridge, New York, pled guilty today to acquiring and obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception, or subterfuge. The announcement was made by United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Timothy Foley, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the U.S...

NEW YORK – The Drug Enforcement Administration announced a new initiative, Operation Overdrive, aimed at combatting the rising rates of drug-related violent crime and overdose deaths plaguing American communities. Last fall, DEA initiated a data-driven approach using national crime statistics and CDC data to identify hot spots of drug-related violence...

NEW YORK – Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that Laurence F. Doud III, the former Chief Executive Officer of Rochester Drug Co-Operative, Inc. (RDC), was convicted today in Manhattan federal court of conspiring to distribute unlawfully, oxycodone and fentanyl, and conspiring...

Dallas - Twenty alleged drug dealers and their associates have been arrested and charged in “Operation Shut Down Corner,” announced DEA Special Agent in Charge Eduardo A. Chávez. The operation – which involved more than 150 agents and officers from the North Texas OCEDTF Strike Force – focused on Hamilton...

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. - Earlier today, in federal court in Central Islip, Michael Belfiore, a former medical doctor, was sentenced by United States Circuit Judge Joseph F. Bianco to 23 years in prison for the illegal distribution of oxycodone causing the deaths of two patients and the illegal distribution of...

Dallas - The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has agreed to pay $4.5 million to resolve allegations that its violations of the Controlled Substances Act allowed hospital staff to divert fentanyl and other dangerous drugs from the hospital, announced DEA Dallas Special Agent in Charge, Eduardo A. Chávez. The...

DALLAS– The Drug Enforcement Administration will host its 21st National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, October 23 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This event offers free and anonymous disposal of unneeded medications at more than 4,000 local drop-off locations nationwide. According to a report published by the...

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. - A federal jury in Central Islip returned a guilty verdict this afternoon against Frank Parasmo, a medical doctor with an office in Deer Park, on 31 counts of unlawfully distributing oxycodone, a highly addictive prescription painkiller, and one count of unlawfully distributing hydrocodone, all without a...

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. – Earlier today, in federal court in Central Islip, Tameshwar Ammar, a former medical doctor in Roslyn, New York, was sentenced by United States District Judge Denis R. Hurley to five years’ imprisonment for conspiring to illegally distribute oxycodone. In June 2020, Ammar relinquished his license to...

NEW YORK – Today, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a Public Safety Alert warning Americans of the alarming increase in the lethality and availability of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine. DEA’s Public Safety Alert, the first in six years, seeks to raise public awareness of a significant nationwide...