Former Minister of Health Dr Noel Blackman has reached a deal with the US in relation to charges of conspiracy to distribute and distribution of the painkiller, oxycodone.
According to court documents seen by Stabroek News, the US and Blackman have arrived at a plea agreement and a change of plea hearing has been requested for August 24, 2016. Blackman had pleaded not guilty to the charges on February 26, 2016. The court was notified of the deal on Tuesday.
Permanent detention of Blackman had been ordered by a New York judge after the US government argued that he posed a serious flight risk from the charges he faced.
On February 7th, 2016, Blackman was taken off of a plane which was preparing to leave for Guyana from JFK Airport.
The order for permanent detention 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.
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.
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.
