Flushing Doctor Charged In 3 Overdose Deaths: Authorities

FLUSHING, QUEENS -- A Queens doctor has been charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment for allegedly prescribing lethal drug cocktails that caused three of his patients to die of overdoses, authorities announced Thursday.

Lawrence Choy, 65, allegedly prescribed lethal combinations of opioids, benzos and muscle relaxers to more than a dozen patients from his practice at 142-20 Franklin Ave. in Flushing, prosecutors said. He was arrested in Wisconsin in March, and appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday.

Choy, an licensed physician since 1981, was indicted on 231 charges - two counts of manslaughter, nine counts of reckless endangerment and 220 counts of criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance - on behalf of 14 patients, two of whom fatally overdosed on deadly drug cocktails just three days after he signed off on their prescriptions, prosecutors said.

The internal medicine and kidney doctor allegedly began dolling out high numbers of prescriptions for a trio of drugs experts call "The Holy Trinity" - an opioid, a benzodiazepine and a muscle relaxant - in 2012, around the time an investigation began into the more than $1 million he owed in taxes.

“It is particularly troublesome having to confront a professional as in this case, willing to sell his license to line his pockets with silver," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. "The defendant in this case took an oath to do no harm, yet three of his patients are dead."

His first patient to fatally overdose was Eliot Castillo, then 35, who was found dead in his mother's Jamaica home on Feb. 23, 2013, prosecutors said. A medical examiner later determined Castillo died from a combination of the oxycodone and alprazolam that Choy allegedly prescribed him.

Another patient, 30-year-old Michael Ries, died of an overdose a year later on March 23, 2014, at his family's home in Long Island. Authorities later determined a deadly cocktail of oxycodone, alprazolam and carisoprodol - all allegedly prescribed by Choy - killed him.

At Reis' appointment three days earlier, Choy allegedly prescribed him 720 pills, which equals out to about 24 pills per day, prosecutors said. Over three visits with the doctor, Ries was allegedly prescribed more than 2,100 pills.

Choy was charged with second-degree manslaughter for both overdoses. His nine charges of reckless endangerment are in connection to eight other surviving patients and the fatal overdose of Daniel Barry.

The 43-year-old Suffolk County man overdosed on Jan. 15, 2016, a week after Choy prescribed him a slew of opioid painkillers despite knowing he struggled with addiction, prosecutors said.

Authorities began investigating Choy after the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office noticed suspicious prescriptions were being filled across the state in his name. By then, he'd allegedly grown a following spanning from Long Island and upstate New York to New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Choy abruptly shuttered his Flushing practice after investigators paid him a visit in June 2017. He moved to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where agents from the DEA's Milwaukee District Office arrested him on March 29.

He was later released on bail and returned to New York City earlier this week to face the charges.

“Dr. Choy’s blatant disregard to the practice of medicine became a parent’s worst nightmare and an opioid addict’s dream," said DEA Special Agent in Charge James Hunt. "Similar investigations into the diversion of prescription medication have put doctors at the same level as drug kingpins.”

(Lead image: Lawrence Choy's now-shuttered office at 142-20 Franklin Ave. in Flushing. Phot via Google Maps/November 2017)