Crime Watch

Merrick doc fighting pain pill charges

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A Merrick family doctor is vowing to fight charges that he illegally distributed the addictive pain medication oxycodone to patients, two of whom died after overdosing on the narcotic, according to federal prosecutors. He pleaded not guilty in federal court on Aug. 30.

Michael Belfiore, 53, of Westbury, was originally charged in 2014 with unlawfully prescribing oxycodone to an undercover Nassau County detective. Now he faces additional charges of illegally prescribing the drug to other patients, for a total of 29 charges against him. He is free on $500,000 bond.

Belfiore wrote 5,000 prescriptions for 600,000 pain pills between January 2010 and March 2013, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Central Islip. He has been in practice since 1994, and he said he wrote pain medication prescriptions from the time he opened the practice through 2013.

According to federal officials, 5,000 is “an extremely high number of oxycodone prescriptions and oxycodone pills issued by a sole family practitioner, especially in light of the defendant’s specialty area: general family medicine and dermatology."

“These people are in pain,” Belfiore told the Herald in a Sept. 2 phone interview, “and they don’t know where to go and what to do. How many back surgeries fail? How many procedures fail? Who’s left holding the bag? The family doctor.”

Belfiore contended that he wrote 5,000 prescriptions over five years, not three. He noted that his office is open 250 days a year, and that he sees up to 40 to 50 patients a day. On average, he said, he wrote six to seven oxycodone prescriptions a day.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration opened an investigation in the spring of 2013 into Belfiore’s practice after receiving many complaints by pharmacists, law enforcement officers and confidential sources, court documents state. Federal officials sent an undercover county detective to Belfiore’s office to falsely claim that he suffered from back and shoulder pain.

According to documents, the officer was “examined by Belfiore for approximately 30 seconds.” After a brief discussion, Belfiore allegedly wrote the officer a prescription for 90 30-milligram oxycodone pills.

In their discussion, the officer told Belfiore that he was dating a girl who was on oxycodone, and that he would take one of her pills after work because he “liked the way it felt.” He also said that he and his girlfriend had broken up, but that another patient of Belfiore’s had given him oxycodone.

The officer paid $425 in cash for the initial visit and prescription, documents state.

On five subsequent visits over six months, Belfiore prescribed 90 30-milligram oxycodone pills each time, for a total of 540 oxycodone pills. The officer paid $275 in cash for each visit. At no point, documents state, did the officer provide “any documentation of his injury.”

On one visit, the officer told Belfiore that he was back together with his girlfriend and that he was sharing his oxycodone pills with her. On another visit, Belfiore is alleged to have told the officer that he should have his back X-rayed to justify the need for the prescriptions.

All visits were recorded by the officer on video and audiotape.

Belfiore contends that he twice told the officer that he should not share his medications with his girlfriend. The officer, Belfiore said, told him that he had no insurance, so he had to pay cash. Belfiore said he would have accepted check or credit card as well. Payments were made to Belfiore’s front-desk secretaries, not to the doctor, he said.

Belfiore is the eighth Long Island doctor charged with unlawfully writing prescriptions for profit since 2011. “Right now there’s such a big witch hunt going on,” Belfiore said. “They want to give a cause to this whole opioid problem. It’s easier to fault the doctors.”

“There’s no way to measure someone’s pain,” he continued. “You can’t measure it. You don’t have that luxury with pain.”

Belfiore remains in practice, but is unable to write prescriptions for controlled substances such as oxycodone. He said he voluntarily stopped writing prescriptions for pain medications in 2013, because, he said, he was working to move his practice away from pain management.

He further said that he did not ask policing questions when he wrote pain medication prescriptions, because, he said, “eventually the patient doesn’t trust you.”

Belfiore said that he cannot control his patients’ actions outside of his office. If “somebody decides to take the whole bottle, whose fault is that?” he said.

The investigation into his practice has crippled his business, Belfiore said, noting that he has been “blacklisted” by insurance companies, medical equipment suppliers and laboratories.

“I’m guilty until proven innocent,” he said. “I can still treat patients, but how do you do it?”