This is the reality – the DEA investigation into your practice started two years before you found out today. There's 150 risk factors in their algorithm, and your prescribing patterns have been flagged for months. 24 to 32 months. That's how long they've been building a case from your own records. Welcome to Spodek Law Group – we get it, and we've seen this exact scenario dozens of times.
Here's the reality – your medical records aren't medical records anymore. They're evidence. Every prescription you wrote is being analyzed against every other doctor in your specialty. The algorithm already has an opinion about you – and we know exactly how to fight back.
This is what nobody tells you: when the DEA contacts you, you're not at the beginning of an investigation. You're near the end. They've had years to prepare – you have days to respond. We fight these cases, we know what works, we've been here before.
How Your Own Prescription Records Become the Case Against You
The reality is this – the DEA dosent knock on your door because someone filed a complaint. They knock because an algorithm flagged you. There's 150 risk factors coded into their analytics system, and your prescribing patterns have been running through that algorithm for years. Before a human ever opened your file, a machine had already formed an opinion. We've seen it play out the same way, over and over – this is the system, and we know how it works.
Heres how the machine actually operates. Every prescription you write goes into the PDMP – the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. The DEA's algorithm pulls that data and compares your prescribing patterns against every other doctor in your specialty, in your region, across the country. Schedule II prescriptions higher than your peers? Flag. Patients traveling farther than typical to see you? Flag. High percentage of cash payments for opioids? Flag. Inventory discrepancies at pharmacies you've never even visited? Those trace back to your prescriptions through the supply chain – and create another flag. The algorithm dosent need a patient to file a complaint. It dosent need a pharmacist to call in a tip. It generates its own suspicion from pure statistical deviation. You become an outlier in a database, and outliers get files opened. Period.
In Operation Profit Over Patients – July 2025 – 51 doctors were arrested across the country. 122 criminal charges were filed. 93 administrative cases were opened. Not one of those investigations started with a patient calling to complain about their doctor. Not one started with a pharmacist reporting suspicious activity. Every single case began the same way: PDMP data showing prescribing patterns that deviated from statistical norms. The algorithm flagged them. Humans reviewed the flags. Surveillance began. And 24 to 32 months later, agents knocked on doors. The doctors found out they were being investigated near the END of a process that had been running for years. We've seen this pattern repeat constantly – this is how modern DEA enforcement works.
This is the number you need to understand: 150 factors analyzing your practice right now. As your reading this, your prescribing history exists in a database with a risk assessment attached to it. If that score crosses a threshold, a file opens. If the file develops, surveillance begins. If surveillance confirms suspicions, an audit follows. Then an Immediate Suspension Order. Then criminal referral. Each step feeds the next – and your already several steps into this process without knowing it. By the time agents contact you, theyve been building their case for two years. The investigation isnt beginning when you find out. Its near the end. The asymmetry is brutal: they had 24 months to prepare. You have days to respond. Thats the reality.
You didnt prescribe to drug seekers. You prescribed to patients who were in genuine pain – patients other doctors turned away, patients who had nowhere else to go. But the algorithm dosent see patients. It sees data points. And those data points either match the statistical norm or they dont. We've defended doctors whose only "crime" was practicing pain management in an era where opioid prescribing is automatically suspect. We've defended pharmacists who filled legitimate prescriptions that happened to trigger algorithmic flags. We get it – you see patients, the DEA sees statistics. We know how to poke holes in their algorithmic assumptions, how to challenge the methodology behind their risk factors, how to show that statistical deviation isnt evidence of criminal intent. This is what we do. This is ALL we do.
The Two Tracks That Destroy You Simultaneously
Heres what nobody explains about DEA investigations – there not one investigation. Their two. Administrative and criminal run in parallel, and the same evidence feeds both tracks. We get it, this is confusing – everyone thinks you fight one battle, then the next. Thats not how it works. You fight both at the same time, and loosing one makes loosing the other more likely. This is the system, and we know how to navigate it.
The administrative track operates under a completely different standard than criminal prosecution. Criminal conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt – the highest standard in American law. The administrative track? It uses preponderance of evidence. Thats 51%. More likely than not. Your practice can be destroyed on what amounts to a coin flip while your still presumed innocent of any crime. Heres how it works in practice: the DEA issues whats called an Immediate Suspension Order – an ISO. Under 21 USC 824, they can immediately suspend your registration if they find "imminent danger to public health." Thats a lower standard than you'd face in traffic court. And heres the kicker that most attorneys dont explain – theres no automatic hearing to challenge it. You have to fight for one. While you cant prescribe. While your practice hemorrhages patients. While the criminal track keeps building.
Look at Operation Profit Over Patients again. July 2025. 51 arrests. 122 criminal charges. And 93 administrative cases. Both tracks at once – launched from the same evidence, running in parallel, each one feeding the other. The same prescription records that couldnt convict you criminally can still end your career administratively. The same PDMP data that might not prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt can easily hit 51% certainty. We've seen doctors beat criminal charges only to discover their license was already gone – suspended administratively while they were preparing their criminal defense. The government dosent wait to see how the criminal case goes before taking administrative action. They run both simultaneously, and they know the administrative track is faster.
The ISO destroys your practice before you ever see a courtroom. Your patients cant get their prescriptions filled. Your staff has no work. Your income stops. Insurance panels drop you. Hospital privileges get revoked. And all of this happens on a 51% standard – while your still presumed innocent of any crime. By the time the criminal trial starts – if it ever does – the administrative track has already taken everything. Your fighting for freedom in criminal court while your career is already ashes. This is the trap: you think you have one battle. You actually have two. And the one that destroys your livelihood moves faster than the one that threatens your freedom.
You think your fighting one battle. Your fighting two. We work to coordinate defense across both tracks – administrative and criminal – because loosing one makes loosing the other more likely. When you hire us, we dont just prepare for trial. We fight the ISO. We challenge the administrative suspension. We protect your ability to practice while we build your criminal defense. Most firms focus on one track and let the other track destroy you in the background. We get it – you cant win the criminal case if you've already lost everything. We fight, we dont quit, and we understand that protecting your practice and protecting your freedom require simultaneous strategy. This is what we do.
The Mistakes That Destroy Doctors Before Trial
Your instinct right now is to cooperate. We get it – you've done nothing wrong, you want to explain, you think if they just understood your medical reasoning everything would be fine. This is dangerous thinking. The instinct that serves you well in medicine – communicate clearly, explain your decisions, work collaboratively with others – becomes a weapon in the hands of federal investigators. We've seen it destroy doctors who thought they were helping themselves.
Heres the inversion nobody expects: cooperation without an attorney accelerates your destruction. Every word you say becomes evidence. The DEA agents at your door arent your collegues – their building a case. They have training in interview techniques designed to elicit admissions. They ask questions they already know the answers to, just to see if you'll lie. They create comfortable environments so you'll relax and say more than you should. When you "explain yourself," your not clearing things up – your creating a recorded statement that prosecutors will parse word by word, looking for inconsistencies, looking for admissions, looking for anything that helps their case. The cooperation that feels natural, that feels like the right thing to do, is actually how cases get made. We've seen doctors talk themselves into indictments thinking they were talking their way out.
The second trap is voluntary surrender. The DEA may suggest you voluntarily surrender your registration – it sounds reasonable, like damage control, like taking responsibility before things get worse. This is a trap. Voluntary surrender makes future reapplication nearly impossible. It dosent help your criminal case. It dosent prevent prosecution. It dosent show good faith in any way that benefits you. Dr. Blatti surrendered his license in June 2019 after his arrest. He thought it might help – show cooperation, demonstrate he wasnt a threat. It didnt reduce his sentence. He's serving 15 years. All the surrender did was make his administrative situation permanant. He cant reapply. He cant get his license back. The criminal case proceeded exactly as it would have anyway.
Never voluntarily surrender your DEA registration. We cannot stress this enough. What feels like taking responsibility is actually permanant harm that follows you forever. If you surrender, you create a record of voluntary relinquishment that any future licensing board will see. Any future attempt to practice medicine in any state will be affected. You've made a permanent admission in exchange for nothing – no reduced charges, no better treatment, no benefit whatsoever. The government will gladly accept your surrender and then prosecute you anyway. We've seen it happen. The surrender that seemed like damage control became permanent damage that cant be undone.
The third mistake is waiting. You think you have time to figure this out, to find the right attorney, to understand whats happening. The reality is – they've had 24 months to build their case. You have days to respond before the administrative track destroys what the criminal track hasnt touched. We understand why you want to cooperate – your a doctor, you help people, you explain things. But this isnt medicine. This is federal investigation. We work to protect your registration while fighting both tracks simultaniously. We make sure you dont say things that become evidence. We make sure you dont surrender things that cant be recovered. We fight, we dont quit, and we understand urgency matters.
Defense Strategies That Actually Work
Heres hope in the middle of all this – the Supreme Court changed DEA prosecution in 2022. Ruan v. United States established that prosecutors must prove you KNEW your prescribing was illegal. Not just that it was unusual. Not just that it was outside statistical norms. Not just that other doctors wouldnt have done it. They have to prove you knew. This is significant – and most doctors facing DEA investigation have never heard of it.
Before Ruan, prosecutors could convict doctors by showing their prescribing was objectively outside the standard of care. Expert witnesses would testify that no reasonable doctor would prescribe this way. The jury would conclude the doctor was practicing bad medicine, and conviction followed. What the doctor THOUGHT didnt matter – only what a reasonable doctor would have done. Ruan changed that. Now prosecutors must prove subjective knowledge – that the doctor knew, in their own mind, that what they were doing was illegal. This creates a genuine defense for doctors who were practicing what they believed was legitimate medicine. If you genuinely believed you were helping patients, if you genuinely believed your prescribing was within proper bounds, Ruan gives us something to work with. We've used this defense to protect doctors who were practicing at the edges of pain management – where statistical norms dont capture medical reality.
Your defense has to address both realities simultaniously. Medical standard of care and DEA's "legitimate medical purpose" sound similar – their not. Medical standard of care asks: would a reasonable doctor do this? DEA's legitimate medical purpose asks: was this prescribed for a legitimate medical purpose within the usual course of professional practice? The gap between them is where careers end. A prescription might meet one standard and fail the other. You might be practicing acceptable medicine by physician standards while violating DEA standards. We work to close that gap, to show that your prescribing met both standards, to demonstrate that any deviation was a matter of medical judgment, not criminal intent.
But heres the catch: Ruan helps the criminal track. The administrative track can still destroy you on that 51% standard while your building your Ruan defense. You might eventually beat the criminal charges because prosecutors cant prove you knew. But by then, your practice is gone. Your registration is suspended. Your career is in ruins. Ruan is not a complete shield – its one tool in a comprehensive defense strategy. We work to coordinate both tracks, using Ruan to fight criminal charges while simultaneously protecting your registration from administrative destruction.
We look to challenge how evidence was gathered – the warrantless PDMP access, the algorithmic flagging, the parallel investigations. We poke holes in their timeline, their documentation, their expert witnesses. We've learned a thing or two about how DEA builds these cases, and we know where the weaknesses are. Todd Spodek built this firm on fighting cases others thought were unwinnable. We offer white-glove service because thats what you deserve when your entire career is at stake. We dont just take your case – we fight it like our own career depends on it. Because for you, it does.
Your Practice Is At Stake – The Time To Act Is Now
Lets be clear about whats happening. A statistical anomaly triggered an algorithm. A file opened. Your PDMP data got pulled. Surveilance began. An audit happened or is about to happen. An ISO may be next. Then indictment. Each step is evidence for the next – and your already several steps into this process.
The case has been building for years. You have days to respond. Call 212-300-5196.
You built this practice over decades – 12 years of training, years of helping patients in pain. Now the government is treating you like a drug dealer. We get it, we really do. This isnt fair. But fair dosent matter right now – what matters is fighting back correctly.
Dr. Blatti prescribed from a Dunkin Donuts parking lot after loosing his office space. He thought he was still practicing medicine. The DEA saw a statistical anomaly. Hes serving 15 years. Dr. Parasmo – 1.5 million pills. Dr. Lopez – $20 million street value. These are New York cases, your jurisdiction, your reality.
This is your future – your family, your career, your freedom. We fight these cases every day. We know the prosecutors, we know the process, we know whats at stake. The investigation started years ago. Your defense starts now.
Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. We're available 24/7 – because DEA investigations dont wait for business hours, and neither should your defense.
