A Fairfield physician was sentenced to two years of probation and issued 200 hours of community service for illegally prescribing oxycodone, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said that 56-year-old Paul Bellofiore, M.D., who lived in Trumbull and practiced in Fairfield, had been prescribing the controlled substance to a married couple who used to live in Connecticut.
The patients moved to Florida in 2011, but still made yearly visits to Connecticut where they had scheduled appointments with Bellofiore. When the couple was unable to travel back to Connecticut, Bellofiore would leave predated prescriptions for a friend or relative of the couple to pick up.
After each appointment, the physician prescribed the couple with up to six months’ worth of predated prescriptions including oxycodone and Percocet. Prescriptions of a Schedule II controlled substance cannot exceed a 90-day supply, as stated in the Controlled Substances Act. The prescriptions must be dated as of and signed on the day when issued and bear the full name and address of the patient. However, Bellofiore did not include the couples’ most current Florida address on the oxycodone and Percocet prescriptions.
The prescriptions Bellofiore wrote were improperly dated to make it appear like they were issued monthly, investigators said.
The former Connecticut couple then sold their medications through a middleman involved in Waterbury, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said that Bellofiore should have been aware of the possibility that the couple was abusing or selling their forged prescriptions.
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On Oct. 13, 2016 Bellofiore pleaded guilty to one count of issuing unlawful prescriptions for oxycodone.
DEA’s New Haven Tactical Diversion Squad is responsible for conducting this investigation.
