Patchogue nurse practitioner who prescribed and sold thousands of painkillers sentenced to prison

A Patchogue nurse practitioner convicted of prescribing more than 400,000 high-dose oxycodone pills in just a year was sentenced Tuesday to 9 to 19 years in prison, prosecutors said.

"This was a drug dealer in a lab coat," Assistant District Attorney Dina Cangero said of defendant Ingrid Gordon-Patterson, 49. State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro sentenced her after a jury convicted her in June of second-degree conspiracy, two counts of criminal sale of a prescription drug, fourth-degree conspiracy and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Prosecutors had recommended the maximum possible sentence of 20 2/3 to 29 years in prison.

Cangero said Gordon-Patterson's "criminal conduct was egregious. She abused her professional license. She contributed to this plague we've had in Suffolk County, with the abuse of opioid drugs."

Even more shocking, Cangero said, was that Gordon-Patterson sold highly addictive pills with a street value of $6 million in the year after David Laffer murdered four people in a Medford pharmacy trying to steal such drugs. At a time when other medical professionals were clamping down on prescriptions as a result of the mass murder, Cangero said, Gordon-Patterson flooded the streets with such pills.

She said Gordon-Patterson sold more than 400,000 of the 30-milligram pills -- the highest dose available -- in less than a year. A responsible provider might prescribe less than a dozen.

Gordon-Patterson apologized to her family in court but did not take responsibility for her crimes, Cangero said. Ambro said her words amounted to a state of "denial."

Defense attorney Lawrence Etah, of Hempstead, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. After the conviction he said his client would appeal.