D.A.: Doc taped oxy scripts on office door

An elderly Havertown doctor and his secretary handed out oxycodone prescriptions like candy and even taped the prescriptions to the office door when the business was closed, according to the Delaware County District Attorney's Office.

Steven Friedman, 74, of Newtown Square, and Margaret McGowan, 78, of Broomall, face numerous charges of illegal administration and distribution of drugs under the Controlled Substances Act for handing out prescriptions of oxycodone out of their office on West Chester Pike near Country Club Lane in Havertown without conducting physical exams, authorities said.

Police began an undercover investigation into the office in June. When an undercover officer approached the secretary's desk for the first time, McGowan asked his name and asked if she'd ever written him a prescription before, according to the affidavit. The undercover provided a false name and told McGowan she'd previously written him a prescription for oxycodone.

"'Oh, that's right, all you kids look the same,'" McGowan is quoted as saying in the affidavit.

She then wrote him a prescription for 60 pills of oxycodone at 15 mg each without ever consulting the doctor, police said. The undercover said from what he could see, all of the files McGowan scanned through were for oxycodone prescriptions.

The undercover returned to the office four more times between June and October to refill the prescription, police said. On one occasion, McGowan allegedly told him he'd blown through his prior prescription too quick, but she refilled it anyway and told him to steer clear of Rite Aid and CVS pharmacies because "'The government is really cracking down,'" according to the affidavit.

The officer never met Friedman nor was he given a physical examination, but he did talk to him on the phone on several occasions and referenced the prescriptions McGowan had written him, court documents said.  He even heard McGowan talking to Friedman on the phone one time and heard her reference him as "one of your oxycodone patients."

On the undercover's final trip to the office, he found it closed. When he called Friedman, the doctor said the office was closed because McGowan was in the hospital but he offered to leave a prescription for oxycodone taped to the locked outside door of his business, which he did, police said.

When officers went back to execute a search warrant three days later, they found four prescriptions for oxycodone and Adderall written out for three different people taped to his office door, court documents said.