PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An 81-year-old Delaware County pharmacist is accused of giving out opioids and other addictive drugs in exchange for sexual favors.
Martin Brian has been charged with the distribution of controlled substances that are inconsistent with the medical profession, sexual extortion, and other related felonies, according to the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office said.
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The octogenarian owned Murray-Overhill Pharmacy on State Street in Media, which was open until this summer, following an investigation.
Police received an anonymous tip back in April about two people who were unconscious in a car parked outside Murray-Overhill. While checking on them, a woman exited the pharmacy, saw the officers, and went back in.
Brian then approached the officers, asking if everything was OK. Officers questioned the woman and Brian, who, they say, gave inconsistent stories.
Officers seized and searched the woman’s phone. The DA’s office said texts between the two showed Brian telling the woman how to respond to officers’ questions.
Subsequently, the U.S. Drug and Enforcement Administration conducted an audit on Brian’s pharmacy. Officials found Brian was the largest buyer of oxycodone, fentanyl and related drugs in his Delaware County ZIP code.
Agents interviewed the woman again, who admitted she had been meeting with Brian weekly to get drugs in exchange for sex.
Investigators discovered another woman was making the same exchange with Brian, and she “could not even count the number of bottles of oxycodone that she had received,” the DA’s office said. She later sold some of the oxycodone for heroin.
“While hardworking pharmacists all over Delaware County are making the overdose-reversing medication Narcan available, this defendant chose instead to actively contribute to the scourge of addiction that families in our County grapple with every day,” District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in a statement.
Brian turned himself in on Monday. His bail is set at $250,000.
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