Former Guyanese Health Minister Dr Noel Blackman on Friday pleaded not guilty in a New York Court to conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone and distribution of a controlled substance.
Blackman who was detained in New York on February 7th remains in custody, according to court documents seen by Stabroek News.
The formal Grand Jury charges were on Friday read to Blackman. He is jointly charged with Wascar Castillo with knowingly and intentionally conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance between April 1, 2015 and February 25, 2016.
Between the same period, Blackman and Castillo are also accused of knowingly and intentionally distributing and possessing with intent to distribute a controlled substance.
The US government has also served notice to both that if convicted on either count, it government will seek forfeiture of any property constituting proceeds or derived from the proceeds of the offences.
Federal authorities, the New York newspaper Newsday said, arrested the Long Island, New York doctor on February 7 at Kennedy Airport. They suspect he illegally prescribed vast amounts of oxycodone — 365,000 pills in 2015 — in a drug-dealing enterprise spanning three states.
According to Newsday, Blackman was on board a jet taxiing on the runway at Kennedy Airport Sunday night when federal agents ordered the plane back to the gate to arrest him. The flight was on the way to Guyana.
An Associated Press report said that federal agents were tipped off that Blackman planned to leave the country permanently and therefore ordered the jet bound for Guyana to return as it was taxiing for takeoff.
Officials say US$30,000 was stashed in the Far Rockaway doctor’s luggage.
Blackman was arraigned on February 8th in Central Islip on a charge of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone.
Records show he wrote 114 prescriptions in 2014 for about 3,800 oxycodone pills and nearly 2,500 prescriptions for about 365,000 pills last year.
“This volume of patients is consistent with a doctor’s participation in a conspiracy to illegally distribute oxycodone and not with a legitimate pain management practice,” an agent who had reviewed the case was quoted by Newsday.
Before his arrest, Blackman had maintained offices in Franklin Square, in Elmhurst, Queens, and in Brooklyn, Newsday added.
Blackman was recently named to Chair the board of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. He is the owner of the Channel Nine television station HBTV.
