Physician Pleads Guilty to Torching Rival’s Office
Category : Uncategorized
Anthony Moschetto, DO, a cardiologist on Long Island, New York, had a business problem with a colleague-turned-rival.
It ended up in a court case that was anything but civil.
Dr Moschetto pleaded guilty in a New York State court last month to setting fire to the other physician’s office in Great Neck, New York, and conspiring to have him beaten up by a hireling, which never happened.
It was more complicated than that. Prosecutors said that a police investigation of illegal oxycodone prescriptions written by Dr Moschetto unexpectedly uncovered a murder-for-hire plot targeting an unnamed fellow cardiologist with whom Dr Moschetto had practised for 20 years. He vacillated between killing and merely assaulting the other physician before settling on the latter by the time of his arrest on April 14, 2015.
The ill will stemmed from an unspecified “professional dispute.”
“He wanted to put him out of business so he could get his business,” Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at a press conference last year.
Dr Moschetto had enough tools at his disposal for all sorts of havoc. When police searched his mansion in Sands Points, New York, they found roughly 100 weapons, including rifles with illegal, high-capacity magazines, knives, and a grenade. Many of them were stored in a secret room behind a switch-activated moving bookshelf.
Dynamite, Fire, Fists
Dr Moschetto practised with the other cardiologist from 1994 until roughly 2 years ago. After the breakup, he originally wanted to dynamite the other physician’s office building, but switched to arson, according to prosecutors. The two men he hired for the job were only partly successful. The building’s sprinkler system put out the gasoline-fuelled fire before it had caused too much damage.
His next move was to attempt bodily harm. He offered an undercover detective $5000 to assault the other physician and, for a time, dangled $20,000 for a murder, going so far as to make down payments, prosecutors said.
Dr Moschetto pleaded guilty not only to arson and conspiracy to commit an assault but also to one count of illegal possession of a firearm and one count of the criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance. State prosecutors said the plea deal satisfied the original 77-count indictment against him.
His sentencing date is December 16. New York Supreme Court Justice Christopher Quinn intends to sentence him to 5 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
Follow Robert Lowes on Twitter @LowesRobert