CT doctor sold $1M+ in drugs, wanted to ‘hire a hitman’

Hartford Courant (CT)

A Connecticut internist accused of passing out, and in one case, selling more than $1 million in highly addictive painkillers to patients and then billing government health insurance providers for the costs of his so-called medical treatment, was sentenced to 7 and one half years in prison Wednesday.

At one point, well into an investigation by a variety of law and regulatory agencies, federal prosecutors said Dr. Anatoly Braylovsky, of Wallingford, who operated the Family Practice of Greater New Haven, discussed hiring a hitman to murder a patient he suspected of working for the authorities as a confidential informant.

Braylovsky, described in court by his lawyer as a substance abuser himself, was charged with health care fraud crimes related to the distribution of prescription medications. He accepted patients insured by Medicare and Medicaid.

Federal prosecutors said that over four years beginning in 2016, the federal health plans paid more than $1.6 million for the drugs he prescribed, including highly addictive oxycodone. Over the same period, prosecutors said Braylovsky billed Medicare and Medicaid about $200,000 for “illegitimate office visits” and “unnecessary prescriptions.”

Braylovsky came to the attention of authorities in 2014 after complaints about his prescribing practices were made to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and police in Wallingford. Two years later, state and federal regulators warned Braylovsky that his prescribing practices were questionable and that some of his patients had criminal histories.

Continuing investigation shows that Braylovsky continued “to prescribe a high quantity of opioid-based pills, as well as Alprazolam and Adderall, to a number of patients,” federal prosecutors said.

Investigators eventually learned that at least one of Bralovsky’s patients was receiving medically unnecessary prescriptions and then selling the drugs, that Braylovsky himself was selling prescription medications and that in another case, a patient was kicking back a portion of the prescription medications to him

Over at least three years, prosecutors said Braylovsky provided one of his patients with monthly prescriptions for 170 oxycodone 30mg pills, 75 Adderall 20mg pills, and 30 alprazolam 2mg pills. Another paid Braylovsky $1,600 in cash on four occasions in return for prescriptions for 150 Oxycodone pills, they said.

While free on bond after his arrest, prosecutors said Braylovsky “expressed a desire to hire a hitman to kill or intimidate” the confidential law enforcement source who bought oxycodone prescriptions from him. When Braylovsky later met with an undercover officer posing as a hitman, he was rearrested and has been detained since.

Braylovsky pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, oxycodone, and to health care fraud. In addition to the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Kari Dooley ordered him to repay the $200,000 he swindled from the government insurance plans.