A Brooklyn doctor became an unfortunate target of New York City's Lucchese crime family, as he was coerced into handing over 230,000 Oxycodone pills or face serious consequences. Anthony Gardo reportedly cautioned the medical practitioner that if he wrote any prescriptions without the mob's permission, he would have been fed to "the [expletive] lions," according to US Attorney Richard Donoghue.
Grado, alongside Lawrence Tranese (a mob associate) and a slew of others, utilized verbal threats and physical violence in order to be given the bogus scripts they desired. The doctor was even stabbed by a Lucchese associate per Grado's request.
Grado and Tranese eventually pleaded guilty on Thursday in Brooklyn court for a conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone. The defendants could face up to 20 years in prison and be fined close to $1 million once the sentence is handed out
Donoghue notes how "Lucchese family member Grado imperiled our community, threatening a doctor to force him to write prescriptions for oxycodone and then trafficking in the addictive drugs. Violent threats to a doctor by Mafia defendants, combined with their trafficking of oxycodone pills, posed an especially serious danger to our community."
For some, this weighty transgression taps into the current opioid crisis that is sweeping the nation. "Organized crime groups and other criminal entities are seizing on the outbreak of addiction plaguing our country to make money. It shouldn’t be a shock that members of the Lucchese crime family used violence to force a member of the medical community to further their criminal enterprise," admits an FBI associate.
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