Dr. Leonard Stambler oxycodone trial starts Monday

The first trial of a doctor accused of illegally selling the painkiller oxycodone on Long Island, following a federal crackdown on the distribution of the drug in Nassau and Suffolk, is scheduled to start Monday in U.S. District Court in Central Islip.

Leonard Stambler, of Baldwin Harbor, was arrested in November 2011 by agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, on charges of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and possession of the painkiller.

Stambler was one of a number of physicians who practiced on Long Island or sold drugs to residents there, who have been arrested on federal charges involving illegal sales of oxycodone since the 2-year-old crackdown began, said Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for Eastern District U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.

Stambler is the first physician to go on trial, Nardoza said.

Two others are awaiting trial -- Eric Jacobson, of Great Neck, and Gracia Mayard, of Forest Hills and Cambria Heights. One physician, Frank Telang, of Port Jefferson Station, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in prison; and a second, William Conway, of Baldwin, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

There was an ongoing federal investigation into the illegal diversion of oxycodone and other painkillers on Long Island, but it intensified in June 2011 after David Laffer murdered four people at a Medford pharmacy while stealing painkillers, according to sources. Laffer is serving life in prison and his wife, Melinda Brady, who helped plan the robbery, is serving 25 years.

Stambler did not have an office or a staff, but sold prescriptions from his home or from his car, an arrest warrant said. Stambler also left prescriptions on his front porch for people purporting to be his patients, the warrant said.

At one point, DEA agents said that they watched Stambler and an acquaintance drive to a pharmacy in East Rockaway, where the acquaintance filled out a prescription for 200 oxycodone pills the doctor wrote for the acquaintance's common-law wife, court papers said.

The two then drove to a street corner in East Rockaway, where the acquaintance apparently gave some of the pills to another man, the affidavit said.

Afterward, the DEA agents stopped the car. The acquaintance told them that Stambler said to him, before the transaction occurred, that "I don't want to see it and I don't want to know about it."

For his part, Stambler told the agents, that the acquaintance and the man "sometimes they exchange pills with each other when one of them runs out; so I suppose he was dropping off pills he owed."

Gary Schoer, of Syosset, Stambler's attorney, declined to comment, as did Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen Bode.

Stambler faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The trial before U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco is expected to last two weeks.