Former Plainville Doctor Sentenced For Illegally Prescribing Narcotics, Insurance Fraud

Hartford, CT (WorkersCompensation.com) - A former Plainville physician whose license to practice medicine was revoked in December 2010 has been sentenced to a jail term for illegally prescribing narcotics and insurance fraud.

Richard P. Luzietti, age 39, of Beckwith Drive, Plainville, was sentenced Wednesday in New Britain Superior Court after pleading guilty to two counts of Illegally Prescribing a Controlled Substance and one count of Insurance Fraud. Judge Hillary B. Strackbein sentenced Mr. Luzietti to eight years imprisonment, execution suspended after four months, and five years of probation with special conditions. Mr. Luzietti will be under house arrest with electronic monitoring for the first nine months of his probation. He was also ordered to repay $741 to the state's Medicaid program.

The convictions are the result of an investigation by Inspectors in the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Chief State's Attorney. It revealed that in 2009 Luzietti had written over 100 prescriptions for Oxycontin and other controlled substances in the names of 33 persons, many of whom he had never met. The prescriptions were then delivered to the named persons, who had them filled at a pharmacy and, in some instances, charged the cost of the drugs to the state's Medicaid program. The drugs were then returned to Mr. Luzietti, who kept some for personal use and sold the excess.

Jason A. Aviles was convicted in 2011 in connection with this case and sentenced to jail. The investigation is ongoing and additional arrests are expected.

This case was prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Chief State's Attorney. The Unit is grateful for the assistance it received in this investigation from the Department of Public Health and the Drug Control Division of the Department of Consumer Protection.

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