The leader of a prescription drug trafficking ring in New York City and two counties in the Hudson Valley has been sentenced.
New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says the Bronx man who pleaded guilty in June to running a major oxycodone trafficking ring in New York City and Dutchess and Orange Counties was sentenced Tuesday by an Orange County Court judge to five years in state prison. Schneiderman says 49-year-old John Bland, otherwise known as “Nugget,” admitted to being the director of the trafficking ring in which he supplied other members with forged prescriptions for oxycodone. Schneiderman says the ring used forged prescriptions to obtain and sell nearly 16,000 of the highly-addictive pain pills with a street value of approximately $470,000. Six other alleged members were charged in connection with the ring, and have a court date at the Town of Newburgh Justice Court in September.
