A.G. Schneiderman Announces Sentencing Of Members Of Monroe County Prescription Drug Ring

ROCHESTER – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced the sentencing of two out of five individuals arrested as part of a joint prosecution with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for illegally obtaining and filling Oxycontin prescriptions for profit. Both Bettina Wilson and Stacy Clark were charged with three felony counts, with Wilson sentenced to pay $7,213 in restitution plus three years probation, and Clark sentenced to restitution and conditional discharge.

"The defendants in this case fed a cycle of prescription drug abuse that is plaguing communities across New York. Whether you are an employee in the healthcare field, a Medicaid recipient, or a dealer on the street, no one should be spared the penalties for profiting off of dangerous addictions,” Attorney General Schneiderman said. “The new I-STOP law in New York State will help us do even more to stem this epidemic by requiring doctors and their aides to check a database before prescribing powerful medications.”

A felony complaint filed in the City of Rochester Criminal Court charges that defendants Shantel Williams, Stacy Clark, Jessica Connolly, Anestacia Wilson, and Bettina Wilson acted in concert from on or about January 1, 2008 until December 31, 2010 in the fraud. It is alleged that defendant Williams worked as an office manager at the medical office of a medical doctor licensed in New York and authorized to issue prescriptions for drugs. During that time, Williams had access to the prescription pad of her employer and, with intent to steal, provided her co-defendants, each of whom was a Medicaid beneficiary, with approximately 25 fraudulent prescriptions for Oxycontin in 80 mg doses using the official New York State prescription forms bearing the name and license numbers of the doctor for whom she worked. In exchange for cash payments, the co-defendants went to several pharmacies in the City of Rochester and other locations in Monroe County, to fill the prescriptions provided to them by Williams, using their Medicaid benefit cards as a form of insurance payment. This scheme cost Medicaid and the State of New York thousands of dollars in losses.

The defendants were charged with three felony counts; Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, a class D felony; Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree; and Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree; both class E felonies. Bettina Wilson and Stacey Clark were sentenced today on their prior pleas to Offering a False Instrument in the Second Degree.

The charges against the remaining defendants are accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The case is being prosecuted by Chief of Criminal Investigations Catherine Wagner of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, under the supervision of Special Deputy Attorney General Monica Hickey-Martin and Executive Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice Kelly Donovan. The investigation was conducted by Supervising Investigator William Falk and Principal Auditor Thomas Clarke, under the supervision of Deputy Chief Investigator Thaddeus Fisher.