Peekskill Pharmacist Warned NY About Pill Doc 30 Years Ago: The Journal News

A teacher who lived in Yonkers died in March 2015 from an overdose of oxycodone and alprazolam.

Authorities said that death was connected with an illegal operation run by Dr. Alfred Ramirez, who wrote thousands of medically unnecessary and phony prescriptions for painkillers.

Now The Journal News, which has produced a series of articles on Ramirez and the opiod drug epidemic in the lower Hudson Valley, reports that Ramirez held onto his license to practice medicine through years of warnings, disciplinary actions, criminal cases and lost records.

Those warnings go as far back as 30 years, according to TJN staff writer David Robinson, who reports that a Somers resident who was working as a pharmacist in Peekskill back then complained to state regulators about the parade of people high on drugs coming in to fill prescriptions written by Ramirez. She called TJN when she saw their report in October 2015, “Teacher dead. Pill doc arrested. Did state miss warning signs?” questioning whether the state had dropped the ball.

Read the new investigative report, “Indicted pill doc’s bad scripts ID’d 30 years ago,” on lohud.com.