NEW YORK—The former chief executive of Rochester Drug Co-operative was sentenced to more than two years in prison on Wednesday for conspiring to distribute opioids illegally, in the first criminal opioid trafficking case against a drug wholesaler and its executives.
U.S. District Judge George Daniels sentenced Laurence Doud, 79, to 27 months at a hearing in Manhattan. Daniels said Doud’s crime was serious and “motivated solely by profit,” but that the government’s requested sentence was more than needed.
Prosecutors had sought 15 years, while Doud’s attorneys argued that no prison time was warranted because similar conduct had been punished with only civil penalties in the past….