An 81-year-old pharmacist in Pennsylvania has been arrested and charged with trading pain medication for sexual favours from customers.
An 81-year-old pharmacist in the US state of Pennsylvania has been arrested and charged with trading pain medication for sexual favours.
The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office wrote in a statement on Monday, 1st November, that Martin Brian was arrested and charged with distributing drugs from his pharmacy in the borough of Media in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in return for sex from customers who were addicted to the drugs and had no prescriptions.
According to the statement, Brian was charged with “multiple counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, distribution of a controlled substance to a drug-dependent person, the dispensing of a controlled substance in a manner inconsistent with the rules of the medical profession, the criminal use of a communication facility, and sexual extortion”.
Jack Stollsteimer, Delaware County District Attorney, said: “He was giving out those drugs to people who did not need them, people who were addicted to them, just so he could get what he wanted from them, which was sexual gratification.”
The investigation was launched in April when cops were notified about two people who were spotted passed out inside a car parked behind the Murray-Overhill Pharmacy located on State Street.
As the cops were by the vehicle, a woman came out from the back of the pharmacy and, upon seeing the officers, turned around and went back inside. Brian then came out of the store and asked the cops if all was okay.
The cops then decided to question the two and became suspicious when parts of their statements seemed to contradict each other.
They then seized the woman’s mobile phone on which they found messages sent by the pharmacist instructing her on how to reply to the police’s questions.
An investigation into the pharmacist was opened and an audit of his records determined there were huge amounts of missing medications from the pharmacy that had not been properly accounted for.
The analysis found that the pharmacy run by Brian was the biggest purchaser in the local zip code of highly addictive drugs such as oxycodone, Xanax, and the deadly substance fentanyl between 2016 and 2021.
Investigators also found around USD 50,000 (GBP 36,696) in cash located in a drawer inside the store, which has since ceased trading.
The woman previously questioned was interviewed again by the police and she confessed that she had been exchanging sexual favours in return for drugs from the pharmacist on a weekly basis.
Cops were then able to identify a second woman who then gave the questioning officers the same account.
The second woman told the police that she resold the oxycodone given to her by the pharmacist in exchange for sex so she could buy heroin.
Stollsteimer said: “What’s going on with fentanyl is destroying families all across Delaware County as we speak. He was giving out those drugs to people who did not need them.”
Brian, who had not been in remanded in custody during the investigation, handed himself in to the police on Monday, 1st November, and his bail bond was set at USD 250,000 (GBP 183,473).
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for 17th November before Magisterial District Judge Walter A. Strohl.
