On December 21, 2011, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York announced that a 27-year-old Yorktown Heights man who worked as a pharmacy technician at a pharmacy in Mohegan Lake, New York, had been arrested and charged by criminal complaint with prescription pill trafficking. The charge carried a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
According to the release, the charge stemmed from a two-month Drug Enforcement Administration investigation into prescription pill trafficking between the New York City area and Western New York. On December 19, 2011, agents arrested the defendant after he attempted to sell a large quantity of prescription medication in a parking lot on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Amherst. Agents seized over 350 oxycodone, hydrocodone and alprazolam tablets.
The Amherst Police Department and the Erie County Sheriff's Department assisted the DEA. The DEA's acting special agent in charge described the case as an example of the agency's work against illegal diversion of prescription medications into communities. The release does not state where the tablets originated or whether any were taken from the technician's employer.
The release notes that a criminal complaint is merely an accusation and that the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. The document does not report the eventual disposition of the case.