State Seeks Action Against Area Doctor Involved in Steroid Conspiracy

By Gregory Kyriakakis

State officials are seeking to revoke an area physician’s ability to prescribe drugs after he pleaded guilty in New York to conspiring to sell steroids.

The state Attorney General’s Office announced Monday that it is taking action against five New Jersey doctors, including Richard Lucente who practiced in Middletown and Staten Island. 

Lucente entered a guilty plea in 2010 after authorities charged he conspired to illegally sell anabolic steroids and testosterone to patients in New York, taking kickbacks from a Brooklyn pharmacy when the prescriptions were filled there, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

“Doctors who make the decision to sell [controlled dangerous substance] prescriptions are a disgrace [to] their profession and their violated oath to do no harm,” Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman said in a statement. 

Authorities said this activity occurred between December 2004 and September 2007. Lucente was sentenced to five years probation and 200 hours of community service. The New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners revoked Lucente’s license to practice in 2010, two months after his guilty plea.

One patient, a New York bodybuilder, was given steroids and growth hormone despite having undergone a heart transplant, according to NJ.com. That man later died of heart failure following surgery, and New York medical officials said the drugs likely played a role.

“New Jersey is fighting back against prescribers who contribute to America’s drug epidemic, and working to protect the public should they ever again be reinstated to practice medicine in our state," Hoffman said. 

The revocation of a CDS registration is an “extra layer of protection to the public,” according to the Attorney General’s Office, since a doctor who has a license to practice restored still must ask the state Board of Medical Examiners to reinstate the registration.

Lucente and the other doctors have been issued Orders to Show Cause why their CDS registrations should not be revoked, with hearing dates in about 45 days from now, according to the Attorney General’s Office. Prior to that, the doctors must explain in writing why they should be able to keep that privilege.