NEW YORK A pain doctor convicted of manslaughter in two patients’ overdose deaths was sentenced Friday to more than a decade in prison, after patients’ relatives pleaded for a tough punishment and said he put money ahead of medicine.
Dr. Stan Li got a 10 2/3 -to-20-year term in a case that reflected the widening reach of criminal prosecutions of physicians accused of abetting prescription drug abuse. Believed to be New York’s first manslaughter case against a doctor in an overdose death, it also invoked the specter of drug-related violence: One of Li’s former patients shot four people in a pharmacy holdup.
“This is a fair and just sentence, given Li’s egregious criminal conduct,” city Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said in a statement.
Li’s lawyer, Raymond Belair, said he planned to appeal. He has called Li’s conviction a “miscarriage of justice” and said Li just tried to help people who misused medications and misled him.
Li, a 60-year-old anesthesiologist and pain management specialist from Hamilton, New Jersey, was convicted in July of manslaughter, reckless endangerment and other charges.