Flushing Doc Pleads Guilty To Manslaughter For Patient OD Deaths

FLUSHING, QUEENS — A former Flushing physician has pleaded guilty to felony charges for the fatal overdoses of three patients, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Dr. Lawrence Choy prescribed "dangerous levels" of opioid painkillers together with muscle relaxants and benzodiazepines like the anti-anxiety medication Klonopin —combinations that can prove lethal.

Two of Choy's patients, whom prosecutors identified as Eliot Castillo and Michael Ries, fatally overdosed within three days of receiving prescriptions from him.

Choy pleaded guilty to manslaughter for Castillo's and Ries' deaths and reckless endangerment for the overdose death of a third, unnamed patient. He is expected to receive a seven-year prison sentence for the plea, prosecutors said.

Law enforcement arrested Choy in March 2018 in Wisconsin, where he moved in 2017 after suddenly abandoning his Flushing clinic at 142-20 Franklin Ave.

Choy specialized in internal medicine and nephrology, or the treatment of diseased kidneys, according to prosecutors. His patients came from upstate New York, Long Island, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.