Former GPHC Chairman sentencing postponed

The former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), Dr Noel Blackman, is expected to be sentenced the latest in February 2017, sources have disclosed, a year after he was first arrested.

Blackman, a People’s National Congress (PNC) Executive Member and former Health Minister, became embroiled in an allegation earlier this year which stated that he illegally wrote a number of prescriptions for the narcotic-based painkiller ‘Oxycodone’.

He pleaded guilty to count one of his indictments before Judge Joanna Seybery, before whom he stood following his arrest.

Federal authorities in the United States arrested the 68-year-old doctor in February of this year, shortly after he was appointed Chairman of the GPHC Board.

The former Health Minister, under the PNC, was arrested for his alleged involvement in a prescription drug-dealing enterprise across three States. US federal authorities said he was illegally prescribing vast amounts of oxycodone – 365,000 pills in 2015 – in a drug-dealing enterprise spanning three States.

Agents took Blackman into custody after they ordered a Guyana-bound jet taxiing for take-off with him on board to return to the airport terminal. Blackman – under investigation for several weeks – was intent on permanently leaving the United States, according to a tip agents received before they headed him off at the airport. After the plane returned to the terminal, he was arrested and later charged with conspiracy to distribute the narcotic.

Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations also found $30,000 in cash stashed in his luggage, officials had said.

According to Blackman’s prescription records checked by federal authorities, the 365,000 oxycodone pills came from 2487 prescriptions – a marked increase from the 114 he wrote for 3800 pills in 2014 and 63 written in 2013 for 2100 pills.

Blackman, who is also co-owner of HBTV Channel 9 in Guyana, had offices in Franklin Square, in Elmhurst, Queens, and in Brooklyn. Until his arrest, Blackman had practiced surgery and pain management from offices in Franklin Square, Elmhurst and Brooklyn and most recently lived in Far Rockaway, but was a long-time resident of Valley Stream.

Blackman’s arrest was said to be the latest in a string of cases involving Long Island doctors charged with illegally doling out highly addictive prescription painkillers.