A Brooklyn doctor was strong-armed by a couple of wiseguys into writing prescriptions for more than 230,000 Oxycodone pills that were then trafficked by members of the Lucchese crime family, according to the Brooklyn US Attorney’s office.
Anthony Grado, 54, a solider for the family, was recorded telling the hapless doctor that he would feed him “to the [expletive] lions†if he wrote prescriptions without the mob’s permission, US Attorney Richard Donoghue’s office said Thursday.
Grado, Lawrence Tranese, 55, a mob associate, and others used both such threats and actual violence to have the doctor write the bogus scripts — and at one point the doctor was stabbed by a Lucchese associate on Grado’s orders, according to officials.
Grado and Tranese — who both pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone in Brooklyn federal court — along with other gangsters filled the prescriptions themselves and hawked the pills, the US Attorney’s office said.
Grado was also recorded saying that if the doctor’s newly ordered prescription pads “go in anybody’s hands†besides his, “I’ll put a bullet right in your head.â€
“Lucchese family member Grado imperiled our community, threatening a doctor to force him to write prescriptions for oxycodone and then trafficking in the addictive drugs,†stated Donoghue.
“Violent threats to a doctor by Mafia defendants, combined with their trafficking of oxycodone pills, posed an especially serious danger to our community.â€
“Organized crime groups and other criminal entities are seizing on the outbreak of addiction plaguing our country to make money,†stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Sweeney. “It shouldn’t be a shock that members of the Lucchese crime family used violence to force a member of the medical community to further their criminal enterprise.â€
The defendants face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million when sentenced.