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Pharmacist Daniel Russo is the owner and operator of Russo’s Pharmacy in Far Rockaway.
By Forum Staff
A Far Rockaway pharmacist has been indicted for his alleged role in a lucrative oxycodone-dealing scheme, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
A 12-count indictment was unsealed in Brooklyn federal court charging Daniel Russo, 40, owner and operator of Russo’s Pharmacy on Cornaga Avenue, with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone, distribution and possession of oxycodone, distribution of oxycodone by a pharmacist without legitimate prescription, and filing false tax returns.
Russo was arraigned Thursday and released on a $1.5 million bond.
According to charging documents, between March 2011 and June 2014, Russo allegedly conspired with others, including medical professionals and employees of a physician, to fill fraudulent prescriptions for oxycodone and dispense thousands of oxycodone pills in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Russo then filed false corporate income tax returns for his pharmacy for the years 2013 through 2016, omitting the proceeds of his scheme, and false individual income tax returns for the years 2012 through 2016. In total, Russo is charged with failing to report more than $1 million in cash earnings, most of it generated from his oxycodone-distribution scheme.
More than a dozen physicians for whom Russo filled prescriptions have since been convicted of crimes related to the distribution of oxycodone, federal officials noted.
If convicted of the drug charges, Russo faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment. If convicted of the tax charges, he faces up to three years’ imprisonment for each count.
