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A Manhattan physician who describes himself on his website as a “good old-fashioned family doctor” who even makes house calls was busted Monday for dishing out thousands of unneeded painkiller prescriptions — allegedly knowing some patients were hooked on the dangerously addictive pills.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors said Dr. Martin Tesher wrote more than 14,000 oxycodone prescriptions in a Dr. Feelgood act that lasted almost five years.
The prescriptions allegedly generated 2.2 million oxycodone pills — $20 million worth of opioids, according to authorities.
New York City — and the country — is in the grip of an opioid epidemic. The Daily News, in its recent “Opioid Nation” series, said there were 1,075 opioid-involved deaths in the five boroughs in 2016, up from 753 the year before — a 43% increase.
The rate of fatal opioid overdoses in the city, including from heroin and pain pills — tripled from 2000 to 2015, according to city and state data.
Nationwide, more than 2 million Americans were said to be hooked on opioids in 2015, while another 95 million used prescription painkillers in the past year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
On his website, the Montreal-born Tesher lists pain management among the many services he provides patients. But prosecutors say the 81-year-old doctor has no specialized pain management training.
According to court papers, Tesher supplied three confidential informants with the powerful pills at his Upper East Side office, just off Central Park on E. 68th St.
In one instance, Tesher said he believed the informant had an addiction. But the doctor still gave the patient — an NYPD informant — a prescription that let the person take 15 oxycodone pills a day for a month.
Tesher never confirmed the informant had an injury through testing or a look through patient records, arrest papers said.
In the filing, authorities said they consulted with a doctor who said there was “no medical reason” for such a hefty prescription to a first-time patient who had no serious conditions or proof of alleged pain.
A separate “patient” told Tesher he had a painkiller addiction, court papers said. The doctor hooked the patient up with “hundreds” of oxycodone pills on each visit, but never prescribed Suboxone — an anti-opiate addiction drug — or addiction treatment.
Tesher faces up to 20 years on a charge of distributing a controlled substance. He was released Monday on a $250,000 bond.
One of Tesher’s bail conditions is he can’t write prescriptions for a list of drugs, including oxycodone.
It was revealed during proceedings that Tesher makes almost $800,000 a year. But the doctor noted he had racked up more than $130,000 in debts to pay for private-duty nurses for his hospitalized wife.
Though Tesher is based in Manhattan, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said the oxycodone was being diverted into the whole city and Long Island. Brooklyn federal prosecutors have jurisdiction over Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.
Tesher declined to speak with reporters outside the courtroom. A call to his office was routed to a phone with a full voice mail.
Acting Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde said Tesher “used his position as a doctor not to heal but to foster opioid addiction.”
A DEA spokeswoman called Tesher “one of the largest doctors we’ve identified as diverting prescriptions in New York City.”
But there have been bigger players. In January 2016, Dr. Kevin Lowe was sentenced to 12 years in prison for running a huge oxycodone ring out of a chain of Bronx clinics he operated as pill mills.
Lowe, 55, issued almost 35,000 oxycodone prescriptions, resulting in about 5.5 million oxycodone tablets — for a street value of $165 million, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office said.
In April, Dr. Lazar Feygin, 70, was accused of being the kingpin of a 13-person ring responsible for pushing 6.3 million prescription painkillers out of three Brooklyn clinics — worth $100 million on the street.
The clinics would write oxycodone prescriptions and then have patients take unnecessary medical tests, which also bilked Medicare and Medicaid out of $24 million in reimbursements, authorities said.
Rohde said her office and others in law enforcement would “continue to hold medical professionals accountable to the fullest extent of the law whenever they abrogate their duties and contribute to the opioid crisis.”