Feds shut down major Oxycodone ring

NORTH PHILADELPHIA With the help of a physician's receptionist and a couple of prescription pads, a Cherry Hill man turned a small doctor's office into one of North Philadelphia's most active drug corners, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors allege that Leon Little, 33, bought and resold more than 380,000 Oxycodone and Xanax pills from a small army of accomplices recruited to pose as patients in severe pain.

All told, officials said, his operation raked in more than $3 million in less than two years.

Almost as troubling as the volume moved by Little's prescription drug empire, said local DEA head David Dongilli, was the number of people he recruited.

In addition to Little, DEA agents arrested 26 others Tuesday. Thirty-two more were charged - many of them residents of the Raymond Rosen Projects, a Philadelphia Housing Authority development near 25th and Diamond Streets.

"The defendants charged today are drug dealers just like street dealers pushing heroin and cocaine," Dongilli said.

According to court filings, Little's accomplices picked up residents of the project, shuttled them to the doctor's office, and then took them to three North Philadelphia pharmacies to fill their prescriptions - sometimes as many as four times a day.

Little allegedly resold the drugs and then laundered the proceeds by giving them to another man, identified in court documents as "D.W." He would later deposit the money in the account of a consulting company Little created to receive it.

But the alleged scheme hinged primarily on the aid of a secretary for one local doctor, whom investigators declined to identify Tuesday.

Heather Herzstein, 28, of Folcroft, frequently forged prescriptions in her boss' name, prosecutors said. And when pharmacists called to verify that the prescriptions were legitimate, Herzstein took the calls.

"With this corrupt employee in the doctor's office, the Little organization held the keys to the Oxycodone kingdom," said Louis Lappen, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

As of late Tuesday, it remained unclear whether Little, Herzstein, or any of the other 57 defendants had retained lawyers. All those arrested remained in federal custody.

If convicted on counts of drug conspiracy, distribution of a controlled substance, and fraud, Little and Herzstein could face up to life in prison.

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