Feds: Doc who illegally prescribed oxy gets 20-year prison sentence

An 83-year-old Manhattan doctor was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court for illegally prescribing oxycodone and fentanyl to his patients, including one who died of an overdose in 2016.

The sentence was a mandatory minimum required by law for Dr. Martin Tesher after his conviction last year on nine counts of prescribing oxycodone without any legitimate medical purpose and one count of distributing fentanyl and oxycodone to a patient who died — Nicholas Benedetto, 27, of Staten Island.

U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie said the sentence was harsh, but required by law.

“If this sentence doesn’t deter people, then we’re out of business,” said Dearie, who could have sentenced Tesher to life in prison.

Tesher’s website at the time of his arrest in 2017 described him as a “good old-fashioned family doctor” who emphasized listening and compassion, and said his specialties included pain management, acne, hair removal, Botox, psychiatry and Alzheimer’s disease.

He was charged with prescribing more than 2 million pain pills over five years from his office on East 68th Street near Central Park, including one case in which he prescribed 15 oxycodone pain pills a day on a patient’s first visit without verifying the patient’s injury.

Tesher was convicted last July of illegally prescribing to five patients who he had reason to believe were addicted. He prescribed fentanyl and oxycodone patches for Benedetto, prosecutors said, although he tested positive for cocaine, heroin, methadone, oxycodone and fentanyl.

Two days after the prescriptions were issued, Benedetto was found dead from a fatal combination of oxycodone and fentanyl.

Tesher continued to insist on his innocence in remarks to Dearie. “Why would I jeopardize my life’s work and risk my reputation by doing something that was criminal?” he told the judge.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said the sentence was warranted. “In the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic, Dr. Tesher used his medical skills to harm, not heal, and in so doing he cost a young man his life,” Donoghue said in a statement.

Dearie gave Tesher until August to surrender. He has not yet decided whether to grant the doctor bail while he pursues an appeal, which could keep him out of prison longer.

The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Long Island Tactical Diversion Squad, whose agents include representatives of the Port Washington and Rockville Centre police departments and the Nassau and Suffolk county police.