What’s up, doc? Your criminal opioid charge count.
A doctor from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was hit with 28 additional charges Thursday in U.S. District Court in D.C.
Ndubuisi Joseph Okafor, 64, faces a 29-count “superseding indictment for illegally distributing prescriptions for narcotics in exchange for cash,” according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. news release.
He’s accused of distributing oxycodone and promethazine with codeine from his Northwest D.C. medical practice. Okafor had previously been indicted in March of 2023.
Okafor allegedly gave “prescriptions to co-conspirators whom he knew to be abusing or diverting the medication, in names and addresses requested by his co-conspirators, even when he knew the names or addresses were false.”
The release said Okafor was handing out “dangerous and highly addictive controlled substances via medically unnecessary prescriptions” to co-conspirators in a whopping 37 states — some who traveled as far from D.C. as California, Florida and Maine.
Okafor faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for each count if he’s convicted.
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