What Happened
Victor Laperla, the supervising pharmacist at Dale Pharmacy & Surgical Inc. in Richmond Hill, Queens, was sentenced to four years in prison for taking cash to knowingly fill forged prescriptions for oxycodone and to sell additional pills outright.
An investigation by the New York Special Narcotics Prosecutor's office and the DEA found that between March 2013 and May 2018, Laperla filled over 855 oxycodone 30 mg prescriptions, totaling roughly 158,000 pills, many of which were forged. Fifteen specific transactions between 2015 and 2018 involved forged prescriptions for 180 pills each. Laperla also sold oxycodone in unlabeled bottles for which no prescription had ever been presented, receiving approximately $303,900 in cash in 2017 alone. A pharmacy technician co-defendant was separately charged with helping broker the illicit sales.
Laperla pleaded guilty on August 8, 2019, and was sentenced on August 30, 2019, to four years in prison and five years of post-release supervision on a charge of criminal sale of a controlled substance, plus a concurrent one-year jail term for conspiracy. He was also required to surrender his pharmacist license.
What Went Wrong
- Forged prescriptions were accepted repeatedly over years. The pharmacy filled the same forged-prescription pattern for 180-pill oxycodone quantities on multiple occasions without triggering a corresponding-responsibility review.
- A supervising pharmacist was the source of the fraud, not an outside actor. The person responsible for verifying prescription legitimacy was instead profiting from bypassing that verification.
- Cash sales without any prescription went undetected by any external inventory reconciliation until law enforcement's own investigation uncovered the pattern.
How It Could Have Been Prevented
- Require independent verification of high-volume Schedule II prescriptions directly with the prescribing physician's office, especially for repeat high-quantity fills.
- Separate purchasing, dispensing, and inventory-reconciliation duties so no single pharmacist can both fill and conceal irregular transactions.
- Conduct unannounced controlled-substance inventory reconciliations at the corporate or ownership level rather than relying solely on the on-site supervising pharmacist.
- Monitor cash-payment patterns for Schedule II dispensing, which are statistically associated with diversion risk.
Related Guidance
- Regulatory Guide — Pharmacist corresponding-responsibility obligations under the Controlled Substances Act.
- 15 Red Flags of Drug Diversion — Indicators of prescription fraud and cash-based dispensing abuse.
- Community Pharmacy Self-Assessment Checklist — Self-assessment for retail pharmacy controlled-substance controls.
- Diversion Case Registry — Related pharmacy and pharmacist diversion cases.