The former Chief Executive Officer of Rochester Drug Co-Operative (RDC), a pharmaceutical distributor, was sentenced last March in a Manhattan federal court to 27 months in prison for conspiring to unlawfully distribute oxycodone and fentanyl, according to a press statement from the United States Department of Justice.
Laurence Doud, of Port Orange, Florida, was also convicted of conspiring to defraud the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Doud, 79, was convicted at trial in February 2022. In addition to his prison term, Doud was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.
“Laurence Doud cared more about his own paycheck than his responsibility … to prevent dangerous opioids from making their way to pharmacies, drug dealers, and people struggling with addiction,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in the statement. “The sentence imposed today holds Doud responsible for shipping massive amounts of dangerous and highly addictive oxycodone and fentanyl to pharmacies that he knew were illegally dispensing those controlled substances.”
From 2012 through March 2017, Doud distributed dangerous, highly addictive opioids to pharmacy customers that he knew were being sold and used illicitly, according to the indictment.
At the direction of its senior management, including Doud, RDC supplied large quantities of oxycodone, fentanyl, and other dangerous opioids to pharmacy customers that its own compliance personnel determined were dispensing those drugs to individuals who had no legitimate medical need for them, according to the press release.
The DOJ said that RDC frequently brought on pharmacy customers that had been terminated by other distributors.
From 2012 through March 2017, Doud took steps to conceal RDC’s illicit distribution of controlled substances from the DEA and other law enforcement authorities.
“Doud made the deliberate decision not to investigate, monitor, or report to the DEA pharmacy customers that Doud and others newat RDC knew were diverting controlled substances for illegitimate use,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Because they knew that reporting these pharmacies would likely result in the DEA investigating and shutting down RDC’s customers, RDC’s senior management, including Doud, directed the company’s compliance department not to report them and instead to continue supplying those customers with dangerous controlled substances that the company knew were being dispensed and used for illicit purposes.
Additionally, Doud caused RDC to avoid filing suspicious order reports with the DEA as required by law.