Pitt professor charged with possession of narcotics

A Pitt pharmaceutical researcher has been charged with illegally obtaining prescription drugs using federal grants and University funds.

Billy Day, 52, a professor in the School of Pharmacy, was arraigned Wednesday on 18 counts of obtaining prescription drugs by fraud. According to a criminal complaint filed by the Pitt Police Department, Barry Gold, chairman of the School of Pharmacy, reported Day in late July after Gold confronted Day about suspicious purchases of controlled substances.

According to Ken Service, Pitt’s vice chancellor for communications, Day’s employment status with the University is currently under review.

Gold allegedly told investigators that he had met with Day on July 23 and gave him two days to produce documentation of how he was using scheduled narcotics for his lab.

According to the complaint, Gold said that Day told him on July 25 that he had been using drugs he purchased for his lab and was seeking treatment.

Investigators from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and Pitt police met with Gold and an associate professor with the School of Pharmacy on July 31. According to the complaint, the associate professor said that he and Day had two interactions that involved Day “borrowing” controlled substances.

In June of 2011, Day took a bottle of midazolam, an anti-anxiety drug, from the associate professor.

In June of this year, Day also took a bottle of Midazolam from the professor. Although Day promised to replace the bottle when a shipment of the drug arrived for him, he never did.

“I accidentally consumed all of it,” he wrote in an email to the professor more than a month later, according to the complaint.

During the July 31 meeting, Gold told investigators that Day asked him to look for Day’s iPhone in the office. As Gold was looking for the phone, he found drugs in the bottom drawer of Day’s desk.

Later on July 31, investigators obtained a warrant and searched Day’s office.

An audit of Day’s lab purchases revealed that he had made 18 different orders for scheduled narcotics whose value totaled more than $3,800. According to the complaint, Day paid for them using grants from the National Institutes of Health, the federal agency that administers grants and awards for health research, and University funds.

The alleged orders were mostly for midazolam, but also included orders for other anti-anxiety medications — including nitrazepam, alprazolam, lorazepam and clonazepam — the sedative chloral hydrate and various amphetamines. Some of the orders were for multiple drugs.

“In any situation like this, we would take a look at the procedure,” said Service, referring to the way records are kept.

According to the police complaint, Day told investigators during a Sept. 17 interview that he first obtained permission from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to use drugs in his research in 2009.

He also said that the associate professor from whom he allegedly borrowed the midazolam did not know he was consuming the drug.

Gold and the associate professor named in the report were not available for comment.

Day is a professor for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy.

Day has not been assigned an attorney yet. He is currently out on $25,000 unsecured bail. Day was unavailable for comment.