Physician Barry Sloan was charged with manslaughter in the second degree in a 74-count indictment. Sloan, 60, is charged with the death of a 36-year-old from Manhattan who died from a fentanyl overdose.
Sloan is additionally being charged the Criminal Sale of a Prescription for a Controlled Substance. Additional charges are related to knowingly and unlawfully prescribing controlled substances for a purpose other than in good faith.
New York Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood announced the indictment against Sloan on Monday.
Documents show that Sloan was a pain management specialist in New Jersey and New York, working between 2011 and 2016 and prescribing controlled substances 70,000 times.
The indictment claims that the majority of the drugs dispensed included Schedule II drugs, which are known for being the most addictive and risky drugs. He prescribed oxycodone 30mg, a prime component during the opioid crisis, 26,000 times to 2,000 patients. A total of 4 million pills with a value of $100 million were dispensed.
Sloan ranked as the 18th-highest prescriber of oxycodone 15mg and 30mg pills out of 17,000 prescribers in New York.
He was also found to be the fourth-highest prescriber of “Subsys,” a very powerful narcotic designed to combat the pain of patients with late-stage cancer. Fentanyl is 100 times more powerful than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin. Fentanyl is the main ingredient in “Subsys,” and is the most powerful chemical in its class allowed for human consumption.
The indictment also found that Sloan took, on average, $200 from patients during each visit.
Sloan is being accused of supplying the Manhattan resident, only known as L.W., with controlled substances monthly for over a year. He wrote two separate prescriptions to L.W. before the overdose occurred. L.W. is reported to have been a healthy person before meeting Sloan and that the two prescriptions were for 60 separate, single-use Subsys bottles.
