Stan Xuhui Li was arrested in Hamilton earlier this week and taken to New York.
Stan Xuhui Li is charged with homicide for allegedly causing the overdose deaths of two patients.
A Hamilton doctor who has been charged in the overdose deaths of two patients in New York and allegedly sold prescriptions to seven others who died of overdoses was arraigned in court yesterday.
Stan Xuhui Li, an anesthesiologist who worked at Hamilton Anesthesia Associates, was arrested in Hamilton earlier this week and taken to New York. He was charged in a 219-count indictment in Superior Court in New York City yesterday following a two-year investigation into his prescribing practices at a pain management clinic he operated in Queens.
The indictment charges Li, 58, with two counts of second-degree manslaughter for recklessly causing the overdose deaths of Joseph Haeg, 37, and Nicholas Rappold, 21, according to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York. Both men died within days of receiving medication from Li, prosecutors said.
Li entered a not guilty plea and his bail was set at $750,000 bond or $250,000 cash.
Prosecutors said Haeg was found dead in his East Moriches, N.Y. bedroom on Dec. 29, 2009. He had received 15 prescriptions from Li in the three months leading up to his death, including an oxycodone prescription and two others three days before his body was discovered, prosecutors said.
Rappold was found dead of an apparent overdose in a parked car in Queens on Sept. 14, 2010 with a bottle of Xanax prescribed by Li in the car’s console, prosecutors said. They said Li had prescribed the drug three days prior and only 35 of 90 pills remained in the bottle.
In the five weeks before Rappold’s death Li saw him three times, writing prescriptions for more than 500 pills, including opiods and Xanax, prosecutors said.
Seven other people who went to Li also died of prescription drug overdoses, prosecutors said. For selling prescriptions to them and 13 other patients, he was charged with 180 counts of criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled dangerous substance, prosecutors said.
When patients entered the Queens clinic that Li operated on weekends, they received numbered tickets at the reception desk and saw signs posted in the office requesting patients pay in cash, prosecutors said. Li allegedly charged fees based on the number of prescriptions or quantity of pills patients requested.
Li also faces seven counts of reckless endangerment, three in the first degree, for allegedly demonstrating indifference to human life. Two of those charges relate to the deaths of Kevin Kingsley and Michael Cornetta, who died from overdoses after receiving prescriptions from Li. Cornetta suffered at least two non-fatal overdoses while seeing Li for prescriptions and died from an overdose three months after Li discharged him.
The charges were handed up by a special grand jury that heard evidence over a six-month period.
The remaining charges relate to an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield and to interfere in an investigation conducted by the New York State Health Department’s office of professional medical conduct, a disciplinary body that oversees physicians.
Li was arrested on Nov. 27 by Hamilton police near his Secretario Way home. He waved extradition during a hearing in Mercer County Superior Court Wednesday and was transported to New York.
The new indictment replaces a previous indictment from last year that charged Li with 15 counts of criminal sale of prescription drugs.
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.
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.
Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@njtimes.com or (609)989-5717.