FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JUNE 14, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 11
Former Flushing doctor cuff ed for deadly overdoses
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@qns.com / @robbpoz
A federal grand jury indicted a former
Flushing doctor who allegedly ran
a “pill mill” out of his practice, overprescribing
his patients with controlled substances
and causing three fatal overdoses
in the process.
Dr. Lawrence Choy, 65, wound up in
a federal courtroom on June 7 following
a two-year investigation that federal
and New York State agencies conducted.
Choy, a former Manhattan resident, was
initially arrested in March in Sheboygan,
Wisconsin — where he had relocated
aft er abruptly abandoning his practice in
Flushing a year ago — and brought back
to New York aft er extradition proceedings
were completed.
In 2012, according to law enforcement
sources, Choy began overprescribing
the painkiller oxycodone and numerous
other controlled substances to patients
out of his nephrology practice on Franklin
Avenue in Flushing. He began doing this,
authorities said, soon aft er tax warrants
were levied against Choy for back taxes
exceeding a million dollars.
Th e side eff ects of Choy’s alleged actions
proved fatal, authorities said. Th ree of his
patients, to whom he had overprescribed
oxycodone, Xanax and other controlled
medication, died from overdoses.
Th ey included Jamaica resident Eliot
Castillo, 35, who began seeing Choy in
March of 2012. Without performing
blood work and other analysis, prosecutors
said, Choy immediately prescribed
Castillo with oxycodone, clonazepam
(an anti-anxiety medication) and carisoprodol
(a muscle relaxer). Over time,
Castillo became addicted to the cocktail
of medication, consuming greater dosages
of them, and wound up going into drug
rehab before ultimately relapsing.
Castillo, a clothing store operator and
father of two, died in February of 2015; an
autopsy revealed that he had succumbed
to intoxication from a combination of
oxycodone and alprazolam.
Within years of overprescribing medication,
law enforcement sources said,
Choy expanded his practice out of
state and began catering to individuals
from upstate New York, New Jersey
and Pennsylvania. Federal and state law
enforcement agencies began investigating
him aft er the Pennsylvania Attorney
General’s offi ce learned of suspicious prescriptions
in Choy’s name were being
fi lled at pharmacies across the state.
Th e investigation led to a March 2016
raid of Choy’s offi ce by DEA’s Strike
Force Group Z-23 and the city’s Special
Narcotics Prosecutor’s offi ce. Agents
seized Choy’s computer equipment and
records.
With the investigation continuing,
authorities noted, Choy abruptly left New
York state in June of 2017 and headed
to the Midwest. Prosecutors said he had
left the Flushing offi ce in complete disarray.
Th e following August, they conducted
a second raid of the offi ce and obtained
additional records.
“It is critically important that law
enforcement agencies diligently and tenaciously
investigate medical professionals
who use their privileged status to enhance
their own incomes by recklessly prescribing
dangerous drugs,” Special Narcotics
Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said.
Choy faces two counts of second-degree
manslaughter, nine counts of reckless
endangerment and 220 counts of criminal
sale of a prescription for a controlled substance,
the DEA announced on Th ursday.
Photo via Twitter/@DEANewYork
NYPD and DEA agents escort Dr. Lawrence Choy into court on June 7.
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