TRENTON – Attorney General
Anne Milgram announced that an Essex County
pharmacist has pleaded guilty for his role
in a Newark-based narcotics ring that distributed
millions of dollars a year in illegal prescription
painkillers such as OxyContin.
Ahmed “Felix”
Aly, of Union, pleaded guilty on Friday (Oct.
30) to second-degree racketeering before Superior
Court Judge Joseph Cassini in Essex County,
according to Criminal Justice Director Deborah
L. Gramiccioni. Sentencing has been set for
Dec. 14, at which time the state will recommend
Aly be sentenced to state prison for a period
of between 5 to 10 ten years. As part of the
plea, Aly was also required to surrender his
New Jersey Pharmacist License for life without
the possibility of reinstatement.
In pleading guilty, Aly, a
pharmacist at RGN Pharmacy in Newark, admitted
that, in exchange for money, he knowingly
filled or caused employees in his pharmacy
to fill multiple fraudulent prescriptions
which were given to runners who would then
return them to others in the ring for distribution
throughout the east coast.
Aly’s guilty plea was
related to charges filed as a result of Operation
Pandora, an investigation led by the New Jersey
State Police and the Division of Criminal
Justice, assisted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration.
The investigation led to the
arrest in January 2007 of the leader of the
ring, Mohamed Hassanain, 43, of West Orange,
and 19 other members. Hassanain pleaded guilty
on July 31, while on trial, to racketeering
and money laundering, charges contained in
an Aug. 2, 2007 state grand jury indictment.
The state will recommend that he be ordered
to serve 18 years in prison when he is sentenced.
In pleading guilty, Hassanain
admitted that between July 2005 and January
2007, he orchestrated the narcotics ring that
sold approximately 40,000 OxyContin and Percocet
pills per week. Most of the pills went to
a distribution ring based in Bronx, N.Y. The
Bronx ring in turn sold some of the drugs
to a ring in the Boston area.
The charges stem from an investigation
by the New Jersey State Police and Division
of Criminal Justice, assisted by the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration. The case
is being prosecuted by Supervising Deputy
Attorney General Mark Eliades, chief of the
Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized
Crime Bureau, and Deputy Attorneys General
Mark Ondris and Paul Salvatoriello.
The investigation determined that Hassanain
and his deputies within the ring provided
several hundred names a week to Dr. Mario
Comensanas, 53, of Livingston, who was paid
up to $100 per name to write a “set”
of prescriptions, including 60 OxyContin pills,
90 Percocet pills and vitamins for patients
that did not exist or whom he never saw. Comensanas
pleaded guilty on March 19, 2007 to first-degree
racketeering and second-degree distribution
of narcotics for writing thousands of fraudulent
prescriptions for the ring. He is currently
awaiting sentencing.
Hassanain, who ran the ring
from his home in West Orange and his business
on Clinton Avenue in Newark, admitted that
he maintained various “stash”
houses around the Essex County area where
he would accumulate tens of thousands of pills
per week for wholesale distribution. At the
“stash” houses, pills were packaged
in bulk and individuals from the Bronx would
come weekly to transport the narcotics and
provide Hassanain with tens of thousands of
dollars.
On Jan. 25, 2007, the Division
of Criminal Justice executed arrest warrants
at 10 locations and upon five vehicles utilized
by the enterprise. Consequently, more than
40,000 narcotics pills, approximately $650,000
in cash, approximately nine weapons, and thousands
or prescriptions, both blank and executed,
were recovered. The state placed liens against
14 parcels of real property allegedly acquired
with the proceeds of the illegal enterprise.
Attorney General Milgram credited Detectives
Thomas McEnroe and others within the State
Police Major Crime Unit and detectives in
the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs &
Organized Crime Bureau – North Squad.
She also credited the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration New Jersey Division, under
the direction of Special Agent in Charge Gerard
P. McAleer of the Drug Enforcement Administration,
the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office,
members of the NY/NJ High-Intensity Drug Trafficking
Areas program, and the New York State Police
for assisting in the investigation.
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