Dentist Vivian Letizia pled guilty April 2022, sentenced August 2022 to one year probation plus $5,000 fine; paid $100,000 civil penalty to resolve civil liability; surrendered DEA registration and New York dental license.

Vivian Letizia, D.D.S. — Self-Diversion of Oxycodone Using Patient Prescriptions (2019–2022)

Outcome: Vivian Letizia, 64, D.D.S. of Stone Ridge and Woodstock, New York, pled guilty on April 14, 2022, was sentenced on August 25, 2022, to one year of probation and a $5,000 fine, and paid $100,000 to resolve civil liability; she surrendered her DEA registration and New York dental license as conditions of resolution.

Vivian Letizia was a dentist in Woodstock, New York, authorized to prescribe controlled substances under a DEA registration. On several occasions in 2019 and 2020, Letizia sent electronic prescriptions for oxycodone to various pharmacies in her patients' names. These prescriptions were not intended for the patients — Letizia personally went to the pharmacies, picked up the oxycodone, and consumed it herself for personal use.

On December 16, 2019, Letizia fraudulently submitted a prescription for oxycodone for one of her dentistry patients, using that patient's name and date of birth, then obtained the drug from a pharmacy in Woodstock for her own consumption. The scheme continued into 2020.

DEA arrested Letizia for illegally dispensing oxycodone in September 2020. She pled guilty on April 14, 2022, to acquiring and obtaining a controlled substance through misrepresentation, fraud, deception, or subterfuge. As part of the plea, Letizia agreed to forfeit her New York State medical license and was prohibited from re-applying for a DEA registration number. She was sentenced to one year of probation plus drug treatment and a $5,000 fine, and separately paid $100,000 to resolve her civil liability to the United States.

Primary Source: DEA Press Release — Woodstock Dentist Sentenced to Probation and Pays $100,000 Civil Penalty (Aug. 25, 2022)