FORMER Health Minister, Dr. Noel Blackman was on Friday sentenced to 50 months imprisonment by U.S District Judge, Joanna Seybert, in a federal court in Central Islip, Newsday reported.

Dr. Blackman, who practised in Long Island and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, was also ordered to forfeit $536, 000, was fined $15,000 and has to serve three years’ supervised release, if he is not deported to Guyana.

The U.S District Judge said that despite his commendable history of earning a medical degree and doing charitable work in the metropolitan area and in his native Guyana, Blackman “chose to do something pretty terrible.”

Judge Seybert said too that having earned a good living, Blackman was overcome by greed. “This (the act) was driven by greed,” said the judge.

Before he was sentenced, Blackman, who had been minister of health in Guyana and had not become a U.S. citizen despite his years of working in the United States, said standing up, while performing surgery had taken its toll on his body and so he had turned to pain management that was more sedentary.

In that specialty, Blackman said he was “out of my comfort zone . . . lost my moral compass.”

“I express my greatest remorse . . . to the people of America,” Blackman said. “I’m extremely sorry for my actions.”

Blackman also was listed as executive dean of academic affairs at the Georgetown American University medical school in Guyana when he was arrested in February 2016.

Meanwhile, Eastern District federal prosecutor, Bradley King told the court, “We all make choices. . . . This defendant added to the ravages of oxycodone addiction on Long Island.”

Blackman’s attorney, John Bergendahl of Miami, said afterward that he wished the judge had imposed a lesser sentence but added that it was a complex situation.

Federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of 57 months to 71 months, though they are not mandatory. Bergendahl had requested a sentence of 36 months or less, while the government had asked for the maximum of 71 months.

When he had pleaded guilty in August, Blackman admitted to receiving money in return for writing prescriptions for oxycodone for patients who had no medical need for them. Dr. Blackman was arrested at the John F. Kennedy Airport after federal agents ordered a plane he was on taxiing for takeoff to turn back.

The plane was bound for Guyana, whose extradition treaty with the United States was unclear and being renegotiated. At the time of his arrest, Dr. Blackman did not admit any guilt but told agents, “it was possible that some of his patients were addicted to oxycodone, and that he charged approximately $300 to see patients at his ‘pain management’ practice,” according to court papers.

The papers also stated that Blackman had said, “that he typically saw approximately 100 patients per day, which he estimated was about one patient every six minutes.”

The $536,000 was about the money Blackman made for writing more than 2,400 prescriptions for 365,000 oxycodone pills in 2015 and 2016, officials said.