Fourth Manhattan Doctor Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes and Kickbacks from Pharmaceutical Company

Jeffrey Goldstein, 49, a doctor who practiced in Manhattan, pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, in connection with a scheme to prescribe Subsys, a potent fentanyl-based spray, in exchange for bribes and kickbacks from Subsys’s manufacturer, Insys Therapeutics. Goldstein was a doctor of osteopathic medicine who owned a private medical office on the Upper East Side. He received approximately $196,000 in Speaker Program fees from Insys in exchange for prescribing large volumes of Subsys. After Goldstein began prescribing a competitor painkiller, Insys pressured him to stop doing so and switch patients to Subsys, which he did. Goldstein also received other items of value from Insys in order to induce him to prescribe. For example, Insys employees took Goldstein and Todd Schlifstein, who co-owned a private medical office with Goldstein, to a Manhattan strip club where Insys spent approximately $4,100 on a private room, alcoholic drinks, and “lap dances” for Goldstein and Schlifstein. Goldstein also arranged for Insys to pay for the annual holiday party for his private medical office. In 2014, Goldstein was approximately the fifth-highest-paid Insys Speaker nationally. He was the sixth-highest prescriber of Subsys in the last quarter of 2014, accounting for approximately $809,275 in overall net sales of Subsys in that quarter.

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