For HIV-positive New Yorkers, Dr. Joseph Olivieri was a lifeline.
“I stood 5-foot-11 and weighed 138 pounds when I started seeing Dr. Olivieri in 2007,” said one patient of the physician, who practiced in Murray Hill. “He turned me on to growth hormones and steroids. Within six months, I was vibrant and weighed around 190.”
But the very medications that helped his patients feel better led, in part, to Olivieri’s downfall.
He has pleaded guilty to illicitly selling drugs that include steroids, amphetamines and opioids — allegedly placing more than 250,000 pills on the streets between 2013 and 2018. He’s is due to be sentenced next month.
According to court documents, the doctor, 72, was one of New York state’s 15 most prolific prescribers of opioids. The worst, Dr. Dante Cubangbang of Queens, was charged in 2018 with distributing 4.6 million oxycodone pills over six years.
Olivieri was first arrested in 2018 for illegally selling an undercover cop steroid and testosterone prescriptions, according to court filings.
The HIV-positive patient recalled waiting to see Olivieri in the doctor’s office. “On either side of me would be bodybuilders. I remember thinking that you never know who is HIV-positive,” he said. “Now I realize they were there to get steroids [for non-health reasons].”
A source said Olivieri may have started this side business not long after he and a business partner allegedly lost $1 million in an investment fraud.
The doctor, who treated a large number of HIV patients, reportedly lived a lavish life. An insider who had visited his Murray Hill apartment recalled a Sultan rug, implanted with diamonds and rubies, hanging on the wall.
Multiple sources told The Post Olivieri also had a personal interest in steroids.
“The doctor loved big men,” said the insider. Olivieri allegedly dated Mark Rossetti, a former priest from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who left the church after being charged with sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy.
“Father Rossetti was an average [-sized] man,” said the insider. “But by taking him to the gym and giving him steroids, the doctor turned him into a tank.”
Rossetti died in 2018.
After the steroid charges, to which Olivieri pleaded not guilty and which would eventually be superseded by later charges against him, “the DA began asking for [Olivieri’s prescription-related] documents,” the insider said.
Matthew Brady, from the Annadale section of Staten Island, was shown to be a too-frequent recipient of the drugs. Eventually, both Brady and Olivieri were charged with unlawful distribution of substances that included amphetamines, steroids and opioids. Both pleaded guilty.
Court documents allege Olivieri was paid to write prescriptions for Brady, 34, or collaborators, who would then get them filled and sell the medications.
“That is a common way for traffickers to get their hands on diverted medication to sell on the street,” a federal DEA source told The Post. “And a patient file can become damning.”
Multiple sources told The Post that Brady and Olivieri met through a female employee of the doctor’s who was dating Brady.“He wore a lot of fancy belts and always tucked in his shirts so you could see the Louis [Vuitton] and Gucci logos,” a source said of Brady. “He thought it would get him recognition from girls. It was like ‘Jersey Shore’ in the office of Dr. Olivieri.”
Those who know Olivieri are shocked — and hurt — by his downfall.
“He was a great doctor,” said one colleague.
“His [displaced] patients called here and they were upset with us,” said a former employee of Olivieri’s. “We told them to call him [at home] and ask why he did what he did. Writing these [illegal prescriptions] was more important to him than his [medical] license. When the patients really needed him, he let them down.“