Riverhead physician assistant, accused in $1.8 million narcotics scheme, pleads guilty to felony drug charge

Riverhead physician assistant Michael Troyan, charged last year as the ring-leader in a multimillion dollar oxycodone distribution scheme, pleaded guilty to felony drug charge today in federal district court.

The 37-year-old Riverhead man submitted a guilty plea today to conspiring to illegally distribute oxycodone. As part of his guilty plea, Troyan agreed to forfeit $710,290 from illegal prescription sales.

Troyan now faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine. He will be sentenced September 30.

For four years, Troyan issued phony prescriptions for the highly addictive controlled substance to about 20 people, who in turn sold more than 60,000 pills to others in a scheme that netted an estimated cash haul of more than $1.8 million, prosecutors say.

The investigation into Troyan’s activities began in 2011, according to the prosecutor, after a surgeon complained that a patient had been caught “intentionally reopening stitches with a pencil following a tonsillectomy because the patient was desperate for oxycodone,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen Bode wrote in a letter to the court November 4.

The patient had become addicted to oxycodone while being treated by Troyan, Bode wrote.

During the investigation, Troyan was captured on undercover video and audio last fall discussing illegal sales with a co-conspirator, writing phony prescriptions and taking “large quantities” of cash in payment of money due him for past illegal sales.

Troyan was arrested last November after federal agents executed a search warrant at his Riverhead urgent care clinic, assisted by officers from a number of local agencies.

He was released the next day on a bond that included the deed to his father’s waterfront home, which has an estimated value of $1 million. His own home on Kerry Court was also posted as collateral.

Troyan also surrendered his passport as well as the weapons in his home, which were turned in by his father, a retired Riverhead police officer: two handguns, two shotguns and two rifles. He has not been allowed to travel outside Long Island or New York City.

Troyan also agreed to surrender his DEA license, so he cannot issue prescriptions.

Citing the defendant’s strong ties to the community, his surrender of his DEA license and his father’s signing over his home to secure his son’s return to court, the judge agreed to his release.

One of Troyan’s co-conspirators was Southampton Town Councilman Bradley Bender, who is scheduled to be sentenced on June 24, 2016. Bender’s resignation as a Councilman was accepted by the Southampton Town Board on the day of his guilty plea, November 24, 2015.