Stan Xuhui Li, 58, is wanted on two counts of manslaughter, Assistant Prosecutor Lew Korngut said during an extradition hearing this morning.
Stan Xuhui Li will be extradited to New York, where he is wanted on homicide charges.
A Hamilton doctor who prescribed prescription drugs to several people who died of overdoses agreed this morning to be extradited to New York, where he faces homicide charges, prosecutors said.
Stan Xuhui Li, 58, is wanted on two counts of manslaughter, Assistant Prosecutor Lew Korngut said during an extradition hearing in Mercer County Superior Court. Li appeared in court by video from the county correction center.
Hamilton police arrested Li on a fugitive warrant on Nov. 27 in the area of his home on Secretario Way. In court this morning Li quickly consented to being extradited back to New York City and was taken out of the room by officers.
Li, formerly an employee of Hamilton Anesthesia Associates, also worked on the weekends at a pain management clinic he operated in Queens, New York.
In November 2011, following a year-long investigation into his prescribing practices, Li was charged with 15 counts of criminal sale of prescription drugs, according to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York, which his handling the case.
At that time Li was also charged with five counts of reckless endangerment for the sale of prescription pain medication to Michael Cornetta, a Queens resident who died from a prescription drug overdose on Nov. 18, 2010 at the age of 40, the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office said.
Aaron Wallenstein, a New York attorney who represents Li on the drug sale charges, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Hamilton Anesthesia Associates has admitting privileges at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton. Li was suspended with no privileges at the hospital after he was initially charged in November 2011, said Ryan Chamberlain, a community relations specialist for the hospital.
Li’s license to practice medicine in New York was suspended in January by the state Board of Health. A judicial order handed down in April prohibits Li from practicing medicine in all states until the conclusion of his case, according to the New Jersey Department of Law and Safety's division of consumer affairs.
Cornetta received dozens of prescriptions from Li for oxycodone, alprazolam (commonly known as Xanax) and fentanyl, a slow release narcotic pain medication that comes in a patch form, prosecutors said. Li prescribed the drugs to Cornetta between May 2009 and August 2010, and he overdosed two times during that period, prosecutors said.
At the time of the indictment, Li was also under investigation by the the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office for the sale of pain medication to other patients, nine of whom suffered fatal drug overdoses.
Li saw as many as 120 patients a day at his clinic, which opened in January 2009, prosecutors said. The investigation into Li began after community members and relatives of Li’s patients reported his prescribing practices to authorities, prosecutors said.
Law enforcement officers said patients would come out and sell pills in front of the clinic.
Kati Cornell, a spokeswoman for the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office, declined to discuss details of the two new manslaughter charges, but said they were filed as a superseding indictment, adding new charges to the indictment filed in 2011.
Li will be arraigned on the new charges in Manhattan Supreme Court as soon as he is transported to New York City, which could be as early as tomorrow, Cornell said.