A once-beloved Upper East Side gynecologist was busted yesterday on charges he started rubber-stamping prescriptions for an online drug ring around the time his medical license was restricted for “gross negligence.”
Dr. Edmund Kaplan, 50, was among 10 people nabbed in an interstate scheme to peddle powerful pain pills over the Internet, authorities said.
The ring allegedly raked in more than $13 million by operating Web sites where customers could get highly addictive narcotics by filling out questionnaires about their medical histories.Court records also show that Kaplan settled two malpractice suits, one of which involved a patient who got $2 million less than a month before dying of uterine cancer she said he failed to diagnose.
The information was then sent to physicians — including Kaplan — who signed prescriptions that were filled by pharmacies involved in the scam, according to the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office.
Others charged yesterday include pharmacist Peter Riccio, 59, of Warren, NJ, whose three drugstores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania allegedly dispensed massive amounts of Fioricet, Soma, Ultram and other drugs between 2010 and earlier this month.
Kaplan was arrested in California, where records show he moved to Redondo Beach earlier this year.
He previously maintained a Fifth Avenue practice where he gained an online reputation as both a “great doctor” and a “sweet man.”
”I would have a few more children just so Dr. Kaplan could deliver them,” according to one review posted on yelp.com.
But in November 2010, Kaplan admitted to state medical authorities that he had committed multiple acts of professional misconduct, including performing a 2007 hysterectomy during which he “lacerated” the woman’s bladder.