A pharmacist in cahoots with crooked doctors admitted to illegally selling about $1 million worth of oxycodone pills out of his Queens drugstore, the feds say.
Daniel Russo, 44, of Cedarhurst, LI, copped to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone, distribution and possession of oxycodone, and filing false personal and corporate tax returns in Brooklyn federal court Friday, according to prosecutors.
“Russo was a drug dealer in a white coat,” Breon Peace, US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, wrote in a statement.
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“He abused his pharmacy license and the trust placed in him by the community to illegally distribute enormous amounts of oxycodone, spreading misery in the community and fueling addiction, all to enrich himself.”

The owner of Russo’s Pharmacy in Far Rockaway conspired with medical professionals and employees to fill fraudulent prescriptions of the addictive drug in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash between 2011 and 2014, prosecutors alleged.
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Russo then failed to report more than $1 million in earnings, much of which he made from the illicit drug scheme, officials said.

More than a dozen doctors for whom Russo filed prescriptions have already been convicted in connection with the oxycodone distribution scheme, according to the Department of Justice.
“At the same time Daniel Russo was illegally peddling oxycodone out of his pharmacy, he was pocketing — and not paying taxes on — income from those sales and others in his business,” said Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart Goldberg.
“Everyone is required to pay their fair share of taxes, whether they make their money legitimately or through criminal activity,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
Russo faces up to 67 years in federal prison, according to the feds.