SDNY COURTHOUSE, August 16 – Amid the opioid and corporate drug-dealing crisis,Doctor Jeffrey Goldstein and his two lawyers arrived to plead guilty to anti-kickback violations. It had been announced: "11:00 a.m. – Proceeding of interest in U.S. v. Jeffrey Goldstein – the defendant is charged with participating in a scheme to receive bribes and kickbacks in the form of fees for sham educational programs from a pharmaceutical company in exchange for prescribing millions of dollars’ worth of a potent fentanyl-based spray manufactured by the company – in Magistrate court (courtroom 5A, 500 Pearl Street)."
Inner City Press went to the Mag Court at the appointed time but there was another case on, an attempted guilty plea to exportion by a man from Peru who told Mag Judge Henry Pitman that he hadn't actually intended to hurt the victim. His lawyer - to whom Judge Pitman asked, Are you texting? - whispered with him then he said he had meant harmed. Whatever they say, this led to visible mirth among Team Goldstein.
When it was Goldstein's turn, the Peruvian being transferred next with this dubious plea to District Judge Lorna G. Schofield, Judge Pitman asked him if he is on medication. Yes, for anxiety. He allocuted to taking speaker fees from Insys to prescribe Subsys fentanyl spray to his patents. Then he walked out of theSDNY courthouse the same way he walked in, while the Peruvian was taken back in shackles to the MCC.
Previously on August 2: "10:30 a.m. – Proceeding of interest in U.S. v. Dialecti Voudouris – the defendant is charged with participating in a scheme to receive bribes and kickbacks in the form of fees for sham educational programs from a pharmaceutical company in exchange for prescribing millions of dollars’ worth of a potent fentanyl-based spray manufactured by the pharma company – before Judge Wood (courtroom 26A, 500 Pearl Street)."
Inner City Press went to the 26th floor but the courtroom was locked. Checking down in the Magistrates Court on the fifth floor, Ms. Voudouris and her lawyers were quickly pleading guilty before Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang, to taking money from Insys to push Subsys to her patients in exchange for speaker fees, that is, kick-backs.
But there was a problem. Ms. Voudouris couldn't not say that she knew it was illegal, in 2016, and a Manhattan speaker fee in October 2014, $3000, check number 27558.
All she could say is it was wrong. Or wrongful. But did she know it was illegal? She did not say she did.
Still the plea was taken. The Assistant US Attorney said they would - would, not could - show at trial that she had been trained about the anti kickback statute. Is that enough?
The sentencing will not be, by the government's request, until after Christmas. Inner City Press will stay on this case, workingfor now perched over the PACER terminal in the 500 Pearl Street Press Room. Watch this site.
While many even most cases in the Magistrates Court of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York are sealed or have case numbers given only later, on August 1 before Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang, at least one case had no number at all. A defendant named Edwin Gonzalez was presented as just in from Rikers Island, remanded on the consent of his CJA lawyer and in need of methodone. Later on August 1, also remanded but with a case number because indicted and extradited from Estonia which got consular notice was Nikolai Niftalijev, charged with narcotics inportation conspiracy. He's set to resurface on August 6 before SDNY Judge Oetken. Inner City Press aims to be there.
Remands were to the Metropolitan Correctional Center - where as Inner City Press has exclusively exclusively reported fellow non-reporting sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is hogging the legal meeting room with paid lawyers working in shifts so he can be out of his cell, using the Internet.
Inner City Press will continue to try to find the missing cases on the Press Room PACER terminal it has worked perched over for months. Watch this site.
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