Former Amityville doctor sentenced to 5 years in prison for illegally prescribing pain pills

A former physician from Amityville who pleaded guilty to illegally prescribing highly addictive pain pills in exchange for cash, cocaine and steroids was sentenced Thursday to 60 months in prison.

Tameshwar Ammar, 53, told U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley that he accepted responsibility for "my foolishness" before he was sentenced in front of about two dozen of family members, former patients and other supporters. Some of the supporters wept or appeared visibly upset after Ammar was sentenced.

"It’s a very sad day," said Ammar’s attorney, John Carman of Garden City. "The people here today are a testament to what a wonderful doctor he was."

Hurley ordered Ammar, who surrendered his medical license in June, to surrender to a federal prison by Nov. 18. Ammar, who has not yet been designated for a facility, was also ordered to pay $245,000 in restitution.

Federal prosecutors said Ammar illegally prescribed thousands of oxycodone pills to two individuals between January 2013 and September 2016, when the opioid epidemic was killing hundreds of victims, ravaging Long Island families and communities.

Prosecutors said Ammar sold the potentially deadly pain medication to two individuals described in court records as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2. John Doe 1 was a drug dealer who supplied the then-doctor with both steroids and cocaine in return for oxycodone. John Doe 2 was a patient who Ammar knew had a history of doctor shopping, drug addiction, suicide attempts and psychiatric issues, prosecutors said.

Officials have said that John Doe 2 died of an overdose of oxycodone, methadone and ketamine two weeks after Ammar gave him his last oxycodone prescription. Ammar was not charged in the death of John Doe 2.

Arguing for leniency, Carman told Hurley that Ammar had suffered from substance abuse, depression and other mental health issues. He also said Ammar was a victim of shifting protocols as pharmaceutical companies and medical associations were encouraging physicians to use opioids to treat chronic pain.

"My actions were never meant to hurt anybody," Ammar told Hurley.