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A North Tonawanda nurse practitioner working at a Lockport family health facility has been charged by Drug Enforcement Administration agents with conspiracy to distribute prescription opioids.
Michael Ostolski, 55, was arrested by DEA agents on Thursday and charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to distribute Oxymorphone. He pleaded not guilty to the charge during an arraignment in U.S. District Court before Magistrate Judge Michael J. Roemer.
Roemer released Ostolski “on conditions” and scheduled further proceedings. Federal prosecutors said at the arraignment that the conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
Ostolski was identified as a nurse practitioner working at Acacia Family Health in Lockport. As a nurse practitioner, Ostolski is authorized to prescribe and dispense controlled substances.
In the criminal complaint, prosecutors and federal drug agents charge that Ostolski “over-prescribed Oxymorphone pills” to “select(ed) patients” of the family health facility. Those patients then “agreed to sell all or a portion of the prescribed pills for a financial profit.”
The prosecutors said Ostolski then “expected” the patients to give him the drug profits on their next office visit. The government lawyers said the patients’ office visits were also being billed to private insurance companies along with Medicare and Medicaid.
Agents said that during the course of their investigation, they conducted several controlled purchases of Oxymorphone from Ostolski. They said they also made multiple office visits to Ostolski, where he received cash payments for the extra drugs provided to patients.
In a filing with the court, prosecutors said data from the New York State Department of Health Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement showed that between August 2021 and September 2023, Ostolski prescribed the patients who conspired with him approximately 123 controlled substance prescriptions of Oxymorphone.
Those prescriptions totaled more than 13,000 Oxymorphone pills with an estimated street value of between $260,000 to $520,000.
In addition to agents from the DEA, the investigation was assisted by detectives with the Falls Police Intelligence & Narcotics Division and investigators with the Lockport Police Department.