Article Text |
Deaths and arrests have followed the drug beyond Phila. and the Pa. suburbs.
By Jake Wagman
INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF
Abuse of the prescription drug OxyContin, which has been linked to more than 100 deaths in Philadelphia and surrounding Pennsylvania counties in less than two years, is steadily spreading into South Jersey, federal and local officials say.
At least five deaths in Burlington and Camden Counties in the last nine months have been attributed to oxycodone - the drug's key ingredient.
Since January, those two counties and Gloucester County have been the focus of efforts by various law enforcement groups, which have charged 10 people - including a Pennsauken doctor who officials say has connections to organized crime - of fraudulently obtaining OxyContin or conspiring to distribute it.
"In the same way that drug trends in North Jersey are influenced by New York, South Jersey often follows Philadelphia," said Special Agent Earl Fielder of the Newark office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
The arrests began in February when eight residents of Washington Township, Gloucester County, including two sons of a former state assemblyman, were charged with amassing thousands of dollars' worth of OxyContin through forged prescriptions and fake claims on a county-employee health plan.
More recently, an eight-month investigation by the DEA culminated in the indictment of the Pennsauken doctor, who, the U.S. Attorney's Office says, worked with an employee of a Woodbury car dealership to sell the drug throughout Camden, Burlington and Gloucester Counties.
Kevin J. Lickfield was indicted by a federal grand jury at the beginning of August on charges of fraud and conspiracy to distribute OxyContin.
He joins two other physicians, one in North Philadelphia and one in Bucks County, who have been accused this year of writing illegal prescriptions.
OxyContin, which is produced as a painkiller for cancer patients by Purdue Pharma LP in Stamford, Conn., started its ascent as an illicit drug in rural Kentucky and West Virginia, where it has been linked to dozens of overdose deaths.
OxyContin was introduced into the market in 1995. From 1996 to 2000, the number of prescriptions has gone up by 2,000 percent, the DEA says.
The DEA and the U.S. Attorney's Office said Lickfield Family Practice, on Westfield Avenue, was the headquarters of an elaborate fraud scheme aimed at generating a supply of the drug through false prescriptions.
"Dr. Lickfield set up an office visit, checkup and follow-up visit for each person" to make it appear that the visits were legitimate, according to a civil complaint seeking to confiscate $46,600 found in a safe at Lickfield's Marlton home.
Lickfield made between $4,000 and $6,000 weekly from street-level dealers who obtained the drug through his false prescriptions, according to court documents.
The DEA used marked currency and an informant in the investigation of Lickfield and Daniel T. DeLeo, who until June was a finance manager at Woodbury Auto Exchange, court documents said.
When the DEA searched Lickfield's safe on Feb. 14, the agency said, it found seventeen $50 bills that the agency had given to the informant to purchase OxyContin from DeLeo.
Lickfield, according to court papers, said the money was from the transfer of a Pennsylvania liquor license. He told the DEA that the liquor license had been sold for $150,000 up front and $50,000 "under the table."
Records from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board show that Lickfield was listed as the manager of a liquor license that was owned by three former convicts.
Stelios Socrates "Jimmy" Moschas, brother Peter Moscholeas, and Nicholas Katsiotis were listed, respectively, as the chief executive officer, vice president and secretary for 2900 Street Road Inc., the address for the Bensalem location of a restaurant.
Moschas and Moscholeas - listed by the Pennsylvania Crime Commission in the 1980s as members of the now-defunct "Greek mob" - were sentenced in 1982 to a year in prison for filing false income-tax returns by under-reporting the profit from their Bucks County diner. Katsiotis was given three years' probation for the same charges.
Reached this week, Lickfield's attorney, Noah Gorson, had no comment on the charges against his client or his client's association with Moschas and Moscholeas.
Lickfield, whose arraignment has not been scheduled, faces $1 million in fines and 20 years in jail.
Also awaiting court appearances are the eight Washington Township residents accused of health-care fraud in February.
Among the arrested was Corey Marsella, 24, an employee of the Gloucester County highway department. Prosecutors say he used fraudulent prescriptions to obtain OxyContin through his health-insurance plan.
Marsella was indicted last year on charges of illegal possession of the animal tranquilizer Ketamine, known on the street as Special K.
His brother, Anthony F. Marsella, also was arrested in February and charged with insurance fraud. He, too, had a previous indictment, and was on probation after his arrest for similar charges involving the drug Valium.
Both men are the sons of Anthony Marsella, an influential Washington Township Democrat who was an assemblyman for 10 years and is the former chairman of the county party.
Gloucester County Prosector Andrew Yurick has set up a 30-member task force, in association with local police departments, to battle the influx of drugs such as OxyContin, which he said is the most recent narcotic to become popular.
"It came in like a tornado," Yurick said. "It's everywhere, absolutely everywhere."
The parents of one victim of OxyContin abuse - the sole oxycodone death reported in Camden County - still have questions about what happened to their son.
On Dec. 16, Myles Burke Jr., 18, took an unknown amount of OxyContin and other drugs at his girlfriend's house. He went to sleep that night and never woke up. His death certificate lists "adverse reaction to drugs" as the cause.
Myles Burke Sr. of Gloucester Township wonders why no one stopped his son - using his father's health plan and fake prescriptions - when he visited a dozen pharmacies across South Jersey collecting OxyContin and other pills.
According to his father's insurance record, Myles obtained more than 100 OxyContin pills in the two weeks before his death.
Myles had been in trouble with the law when he was younger and had been on probation, his parents said.
"He wasn't a model kid," Burke said, "but he was still my son."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jake Wagman's e-mail address is [email protected].
|