A New Jersey doctor, under investigation for his role as part of an Opioid drug ring, was charged with having his wife murdered in May 2012. James Kauffman contracted a member of the Pagans motorcycle gang to hire a hitman to kill his wife in an effort to keep her from exposing his illicit drug business.

April Kauffman, at the time, was a radio host and was seeking a divorce. When James refused to comply with the divorce, April threatened to rat him out. He then allegedly had her killed.

Straight out of Sons of Anarchy

This whole scenario is eerily reminiscent of a plot from the TV show "Sons of Anarchy." In it, Opie, a member of the gang, is showing extreme signs of distress.

He no longer wants to be a part of the gang. Fearing his knowledge could compromise the gang, leader Clay Morrow orders a hit on Opie.

However, when the time comes, it turns out Opie's wife is the one driving the car he was supposed to be in. The case of mistaken identity gets her killed instead of him.

In this case, Kauffman hired Ferdinand Augello, a member of the Pagans, to find someone to kill his wife. Augello was also a customer of Kauffman's who would funnel pills to the Pagans to be sold on the black market. Several other members of the gang were also indicted related to the drug ring.

Augello is not only charged with hiring the man who killed April Kauffman, but he was also charged with attempting to hire another hit man to kill James.

Six other members of the gang face racketeering charges related to the pill sales.

It's often the case, there's just no loyalty in the motorcycle gang life.

Opioid crisis continues

The ever-growing opioid crisis in America is reaching critical mass. A case like this shows just how powerful the lure of financial gain is when reputable doctors are willfully flooding the market with deadly pain pills.

Overdoses are at an all-time high and more and more cities are becoming unable to keep up with caring for the increasing number of addicts.

President Donald Trump already declared the epidemic a national crisis and pledged to do everything he can to help combat the spread of opioid abuse. Taking a long hard look at the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries should be item number one when seeing how these dangerous substances flood the streets.

Finding a drug dealer in just about any city to buy fentanyl isn't all that hard. None of them actually make the drug though so it has to be coming from somewhere. Doctors like James Kauffman are a perfect example of how out of control the issue is.
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