Ear, nose and throat doctor wrote hundreds of bogus oxy prescriptions, AG claims
TRENTON -- A New Jersey doctor and seven others were indicted Tuesday on charges they operated a million-dollar prescription pill ring, authorities said.
The doctor, 75-year-old George Beecher, was also indicted for a 2013 death under the state's "strict liability" law that allows drug dealers to be charged with a first-degree crime after a fatal overdose, according Attorney General Christopher Porrino's office.
Authorities say Beecher, an ear, nose and throat specialist based in Warren, wrote hundreds of bogus prescriptions over the course of two and a half years, supplying tens of thousands of pills to patients -- many of whom he never met.
He was indicted Tuesday on charges including strict liability for a drug induced death, conspiracy to distribute a controlled dangerous substance and distribution of oxycodone and alprazolam, more commonly known as Xanax.
Beecher's attorney could not immediately be reached Tuesday.
Authorities blamed Beecher for the death of 30-year-old Jason Stoveken, claiming the doctor knowingly wrote the prescriptions for oxycodone and Xanax that killed him.
Stoveken's father, Andrew Stoveken, was among seven people charged in a separate indictment handed up Tuesday alleging conspiracy and drug distribution for selling the pills Beecher prescribed.
The elder Stoveken, an Edison man who ran a hearing aid company and shared an office suite with Beecher, acted as a middleman between the doctor and the accused drug dealers, authorities said.
"We allege that even after a young man died from narcotics that Dr. Beecher falsely prescribed, Beecher and the victim's own father, defendant Andrew Stoveken, callously continued to profit by supplying tens of thousands of oxycodone pills to drug dealers," Porrino said in a statement.
Also indicted were:
* John J. Burnham, 41, of South Plainfield
* Jared Burnham, 31, of South Plainfield
* George Sara, 37, of Bordentown
* Marlena Burnham, 37, of Piscataway
* Donn Rush, 34, of Somerset, and
* Jamar Mayers, 32, of Green Brook
Attorneys for the accused either could not be reached or declined comment Tuesday.
Authorities claim John Burnham coordinated the supply of drugs for the ring by requesting prescriptions from Beecher with the help of Stoveken. Those prescriptions were allegedly made out in the names of accused ring members, whom the doctor had never examined or treated previously.
An investigation by the state Division of Criminal Justice Gangs and Organized Crime Bureau found that between January 2013 and October 2015, Beecher wrote hundreds of oxycodone prescriptions in the names of over two dozen people, allegedly supplying the ring with more than $1 million worth of pills in terms of street value, authorities said.
The defendants, some of whom face up to 20 years in state prison, were charged in December. Arraignments at Superior Court in Middlesex County have not yet been scheduled.
S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.