CONTACT: Barbara Burns
PHONE: (716) 843-5817
FAX #: (716) 551-3051
BUFFALO, N.Y.- U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Dr. Nora Meaney-Elman, a Williamsville physician, has agreed to pay $60,000 to resolve allegations that she violated the Controlled Substances Act by failing to safeguard the token and password she used to e-prescribe controlled substances.
Assistant U.S. Attorney MaryEllen Kresse, who handled the case, stated that between September 2015 and March 2018, Dr. Meaney-Elman failed to safeguard her controlled substance prescribing token and password. As a result, her employee, Kristy Brucz, used the token and password to write 156 illegal prescriptions for controlled substances. Brucz wrote the prescriptions in her own name and in the names of 12 other individuals, both real and fictitious, and had the prescriptions filled at various area pharmacies.
Kristy Brucz was convicted criminally of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and was sentenced in September 2020 to serve two years’ probation and ordered to pay restitution totaling $1,911.23.
“As its name implies, the Controlled Substance Act is premised on the notion that the prescribing and distribution of certain dangerous and/or addictive substances must be controlled,” noted U.S. Attorney Kennedy. “When those entrusted with such control fail to safeguard their prescribing credentials—as Dr. Meaney-Elman did here—the entire regulatory scheme is undermined.”
The settlement with Dr. Meaney-Elman is the result of an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Ray Donovan, New York Field Division.
The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there have been no determinations of liability.
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