By Dietrich Knauth
(Reuters) – A federal jury on Wednesday convicted former Rochester Drug Co-operative CEO Laurence Doud of trafficking opioids to “bad pharmacies” and “dirty doctors.”
Following two days of deliberations, the jury convicted Doud, 78, of conspiring to distribute illegal narcotics and conspiring to defraud the United States.
Doud could face life in prison on the charge of conspiring to distribute controlled substances.
The case, brought by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, marks the first time prosecutors have criminally charged a drug distributor and company executives with drug trafficking opioids.
Prosecutors said that Doud, driven by “greed,” directed employees to ignore red flags when selling Oxycontin and fentanyl to pharmacies and doctors that ultimately distributed those drugs for illegal use.
While his company’s drugs were making people sick, “what made Larry Doud ill was losing money,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Roos said during closing arguments on Monday. Doud’s directives led RDC to sell dangerous opioids to “dirty doctors” who were nothing but “drug dealers in lab coats,” Roos said.
Doud’s defense attorney Robert Gottlieb argued that Doud was being made a “scapegoat” for the opioid addiction epidemic. Doud will appeal the verdict, Gottlieb said.
“Today’s verdict is a monumental travesty of justice,” Gottlieb said. “Mr. Doud’s fight is just beginning, and he will prevail on appeal.”
Doud’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Earlier in the trial, witnesses testified that Doud and RDC’s actions led to the illegal sale of Oxycontin and fentanyl. They included RDC employees, a pharmacist convicted of dealing illegal opioids and an opioid addict who said she obtained illegal drugs from a Staten Island pharmacy supplied by RDC.
More than 500,000 people have died from opioid overdoses in the past two decades, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Doud’s company RDC, which filed for bankruptcy in 2020, agreed in 2019 to pay $20 million to settle criminal and civil charges related to its opioid sales. One of the witnesses who testified against Doud, former RDC chief compliance officer William Pietruszewski, pleaded guilty in 2019 to conspiracy to distribute narcotics.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Additional reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Noeleen Walder and David Gregorio)
