Permanent detention of former Health Minister Dr Noel Blackman has been ordered by a New York judge after the US government argued that he posed a serious flight risk from the charge he faces of conspiracy to distribute and distribution of the painkiller, oxycodone.
On February 7th, 2016, Blackman was taken off of a plane which was preparing to leave for Guyana from JFK Airport.
According to court documents seen by Stabroek News, United States District Court Judge Joanna Seybert issued the order on February 26th.
The order was issued after the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York argued that Blackman had extensive ties to Guyana and the properties presented as surety were into negative equity. He was responding to the proposed bail package that had been presented to the court by counsel for Blackman.
US Attorney Robert L Capers argued in submissions to the judge that Blackman has “significant ties” to Guyana having served as Health Minister and also owns a television station and farm here. He further argued that at the time of his detention, Blackman had been appointed to the faculty of a Guyanese medical school. (The latter might have intended to be a reference to Blackman’s appointment to chair the Board of the Georgetown Public Hospital.)
Capers’ submission also argued that during his post-Miranda interview, Blackman stated that he had planned to relocate permanently to Guyana in or around April 2016. Speaking specifically to the proposed bail package, Capers said that scrutiny of databases available to law enforcement including the ACCURINT database showed that “all of the properties that the defendant’s family members propose to secure a proposed (US)$1 million bond are encumbered by mortgages that exceed the assessed value of the properties. In addition, based upon the government’s review of financial documents and interviews with one of the proposed suretors , it appears that a mortgage for at least one of the proposed properties is being financed by cash payments made by the defendant, which based upon the present investigation, are likely the proceeds from illicit oxycodone sales”.
In a footnote to this, Capers further said that as part of the proposed bail package, Blackman offered to execute a waiver of extradition from Guyana. However, Capers said that since such a waiver is unenforceable the offer is immaterial.
“Because the defendant has been indicted for a drug trafficking offence, there is a presumption that `no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure (his) appearance’…Here, the government has met its burden in establishing that a Permanent Order of Detention is proper in light of the defendant’s demonstrated and extensive ties to Guyana, which include relationships with high-ranking government officials and extensive property holdings. In light of these ties, it is almost certain that if the defendant fled to Guyana he would never return to the United States”, Capers argued.
On February 25th, a US grand jury indicted Blackman and Wascar Castillo, the former office manager of a Queens pain management office where Blackman previously worked for conspiracy to distribute and distribution of oxycodone.
Capers in setting out the US’s case to the judge related that around midnight on February 7th, agents with the US Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Unit detained Blackman and charged him.
Capers said that a joint probe by HSI and the US Drug Enforcement Administration showed that the defendant had issued approximately 2,487 prescriptions for more than 365,000 oxycodone pills last year, a big jump from the 21, 810 and 3,810 of oxycodone pills that he prescribed in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
Capers further said that a month before his arrest, a border search showed that Eva Torres, the defendant’s secretary was travelling with approximately 50 prescriptions for oxycodone that were written on Blackman’s prescription pads. Although the prescriptions were dated December 9, 2015 they were seized on December 18, 2015.
The US attorney also pointed out that at the time of his arrest, Blackman was on a plane bound for Guyana. A subsequent search of his luggage showed more than US$30,000 cash which he had not reported to customs officials. After his arrest, Capers said that Blackman waived his Miranda rights and stated that he wrote the prescriptions that were seized from Torres on December 18; that it was possible that some of his patients were addicted to oxycodone; that he charged around US$300 to see patients at this pain management clinic and that he typically saw approximately 100 patients per day which he estimated at one patient every six minutes.
Capers added that Torres was also arrested on February 7, 2016 and after waiving her Miranda rights stated that during approximately one year that she worked as Blackman’s secretary, the defendant had written prescriptions for oxycodone for individuals without having examined them.
