Criminal Proceedings

July 24, 2020

Several divisions of pharmaceutical company Indivior, which marketed of the opioid-addiction drug Suboxone, pleaded guilty to felony healthcare fraud, entered into a five-year Corporate Integrity Agreement, and will pay a total of $600 million in criminal fines, restitution, civil damages, and penalties.  In six separate cases brought by whistleblowers, Indivior was also alleged to have caused false claims to be submitted to government healthcare programs including by promoting the sale of Suboxone to physicians who were prescribing it outside of medically accepted indication, misrepresenting the likelihood of Suboxone being diverted, and taking steps to delay generic competition for Suboxone. Indivior admitted making false statements about the safety of the film version of Suboxone in order to promote its sale.  In addition, the FTC claimed that violated antitrust laws through a deceptive scheme to thwart lower priced generic competition with Suboxone.  The total settlement consists of criminal restitution of $289 million; a civil settlement of $300 million, with $209.3 million paid to resolve claims by the federal government and $90.7 million to participating states; and, $10 million in penalties to the Federal Trade Commission.  The settlement also requires Indivior to take steps including the dissolution of its Suboxone sales force. Indivior was until 2014 a subsidiary of Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC, which previously paid $1.4 billion to resolve claims related to Suboxone marketing.  DOJ; USAO NJ; FTC

July 23, 2020

Two pharmacists who were co-owners of Advantage Pharmacy in Mississippi have been sentenced to over 12 years in prison each and ordered to pay between $9 million and $29 million in civil monetary judgment, and between $185 million and $189 million in restitution for committing healthcare fraud.  According to the press release, Glenn Doyle Beach and Hope Thomley marketed, dispensed, and distributed compounded medications without regard to medical necessity, causing various health benefit programs, including TRICARE, to pay over $200 million in reimbursements.  Thomley’s husband, Randy Thomley, has been sentenced to 8 years in prison and ordered to pay judgment and restitution of $3.6 million each for his role in helping to recruit TRICARE beneficiaries.  USAO SDMS

July 22, 2020

Tony Garrett Taylor has been sentenced to 8 years in prison and ordered to pay over $6 million to the North Carolina Medicaid program and over $1 million to the IRS after pleading guilty to committing healthcare fraud and tax evasion.  Along with his brother, Jerry Lewis Taylor, the defendant conspired to use outpatient behavioral health services companies owned and operated by the brothers to submit false claims to Medicaid for services that were either never provided or misrepresented.  Jerry Lewis Taylor has also pleaded guilty and is currently awaiting sentencing.  AG NC

July 10, 2020

Perfection PR Firm LLC (PPR) and owner Joshua Christian McDonald have been ordered to pay $360,565 in restitution and $935,907 in civil monetary penalty for committing fraud, misappropriating customer funds, and operating without proper registration.  While running an off-exchange foreign currency (forex) trading scheme, the defendants solicited $440,000 from 12 customers by promising them growth in value of 10-50% per month.  However, most or all of the funds that were not lost in trades were eventually transferred to McDonald.  CFTC

July 10, 2020

A 70-year-old man in North Carolina who pleaded guilty to orchestrating a $22 million Ponzi scheme through his company, Oodles Inc., has been sentenced to 17.5 years in prison and ordered to pay $17 million in restitution.  Hal H. Brown Jr. singlehandedly defrauded at least 60 victims—including family, friends, neighbors, and fellow church members—by falsely representing that Oodles owned hundreds of millions of dollars in rights to religious-themed family shows and movies.  To bolster his claims, Brown developed marketing material, falsified bank statements and company agreements, and impersonated employees of media companies.  USAO WDNC

July 7, 2020

After being found guilty of eighteen fraud-related felonies, Todd Michael Ficeto, a former Beverly Hills stockbroker, has been sentenced to 6 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $216 million in restitution to investor victims for his role in a massive penny stock fraud scheme.  From 2004 to 2007, Ficeto and co-conspirators fraudulently manipulated penny stocks to exaggerate the reported profits of a co-conspirator’s hedge fund, Absolute Funds.  When the scheme unraveled, Ficeto attempted to conceal the fraud by lying to investigators from the Securities Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.  One of his alleged co-conspirators—hedge fund owner Florian Wilhelm Jürgen Homm—has fled to Germany as a fugitive from justice.  USAO CDCA

July 1, 2020

Leonard J. Cipolla of Richmond, Virginia, was sentenced to ten years in prison for bilking more than $7 million in investor funds from customers of his Tate Street Trading, Inc..  Cipolla falsely told the investors that he was a successful commodities trader and could guarantee them a fixed rate of return.  In fact, Cipolla diverted the investor funds that he did not lose through speculative trading, and provided his customers with false account statements. USAO EDVA (Restitution order)

July 1, 2020

Raeann Gibson of Palm City, Florida, was sentenced to ten years in prison based on her role in an investment fraud conspiracy.  Gibson served as the Chief Operating Officer of Dominion Investment Group, which defrauded elderly investors of over $25 million by diverting investment funds to the personal use of Gibson and co-defendant Daryl Bank.  Gibson created numerous shell companies, laundered investment funds through multiple accounts, and spoke with investors.  USAO EDVA

June 30, 2020

Clifford P. Shomake and Kimberly Clyde “Casey” Conner, the owners of Guam Medical Transport, were sentenced to 6 years and 5.25 years, respectively, following their guilty pleas to charges arising from their conspiracy to defraud Medicare and TRICARE by submitting claims for reimbursement for medically unnecessary ambulance services that GMT provided to patients with end stage renal disease, despite knowing that the individuals did not qualify for ambulance transport under applicable regulations.  Defendants admitted that the conspiracy resulted in improper payments to GMT of approximately $10.8 million, and restitution in that amount was also ordered.  DOJ

June 25, 2020

George Philip Tompkins of Houston, Texas, the former owner of Piney Point Pharmacy, was sentenced to ten years in prison following his conviction on charges of healthcare fraud, unlawful kickbacks, money laundering, and wire fraud.  Tompkins billed $21.8 million to federal and state worker’s compensation programs for medically unnecessary compound gels and creams, paying kickbacks to generate prescriptions while claiming that the kickbacks were legitimate marketing expenses. Thompson was also ordered to pay restitution of $12.3 million. DOJ