Drug Executives Charged With Felony Distribution Crimes for the First Time - FindLaw
For years, law enforcement personnel and even our president have proposed applying the death penalty to drug dealers if their buyers overdose. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions even directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty “in appropriate cases.” Normally, however, that rhetoric is aimed at street-level dealers or your typical drug kingpins pushing illegal substances.
But for the first time ever, an oxycodone distributor has been criminally charged for its role in the opioid crisis. Laurence Doud III, former chief executive of the Rochester Drug Cooperative, turned himself in to federal authorities this week, charged with the kind of drug trafficking crimes normally reserved for street traffickers.
Uncommon Charges
Doud, along with former Rochester chief compliance officer William Pietruszewski and the company itself, have been charged with unlawfully distributing oxycodone and fentanyl, and conspiring to defraud the Drug Enforcement Agency. These are the first criminal charges files against a distributor and its executives for illegal distribution of controlled substances.
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