A South Florida man, William D.
Rodriguez, has been sentenced to serve 120 months in prison in connection with
a multi-million dollar prescription drug diversion and money-laundering scheme,
the Justice Department announced today.
U.S. Judge Donald L. Graham of the Southern District of Florida also
ordered that Rodriguez serve two years of supervised release after completion
of his prison sentence.
In June, Rodriguez pleaded guilty to
conspiring with Altec Medical Inc. to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) in a scheme involving the resale of prescription drugs
that had been diverted from lawful channels of distribution and resold to Altec
by two companies controlled by Rodriguez.
Rodriguez also pleaded guilty to a separate conspiracy charge involving
the laundering of proceeds of the diversion scheme.
“Drug diversion” refers to various ways
in which prescription drugs are removed from lawful channels of distribution
and then reintroduced into the marketplace for sale to consumers.
In a document submitted to the court at the
time of his guilty plea, Rodriguez admitted that all of the drugs sold to Altec
had been obtained from unlicensed, illegal drug distributors. Rodriguez advised the court that the drugs
were often obtained from street-level transactions in Miami, including those
where individuals sold their medications for money. In other instances, Rodriguez told the court
that the drugs had been obtained from cargo thefts.
Rodriguez further admitted the conspirators
created drug “pedigrees” that falsely said that the drugs had been obtained
from legitimate sources, such as drug manufacturers or their authorized
distributors. Pedigrees are records of
wholesale drug transactions and must reflect all prior sales or distributions
of the drugs. Rodriguez also admitted
to conspiring to launder proceeds of the diversion scheme by cashing numerous
checks over $10,000. On Aug. 20, 2012,
the court ordered Rodriguez to forfeit $55 million, representing the proceeds
of the scheme.
“Drug diversion is a serious crime that
puts consumers at risk,” noted Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney
General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “Drugs diverted from the lawful channels of
distribution may not have been properly handled and stored, which means they
could have been contaminated, had their mechanisms of action altered, or they
could be expired. Drug Diversion
undermines the safety and effectiveness of our prescription drug system, and we
will continue to prosecute those who engage in it.”
The Justice Department advises consumers
who have concerns about a drug to check the lot numbers on the manufacturer’s
web site to see if there are any warnings about it. Use of diverted drugs can cause
unpredictable adverse side effects and may fail to treat the condition for which
a consumer is taking the drugs.
On Aug. 10, 2012, Altec pleaded guilty to the
diversion scheme, was fined $2 million, and was ordered to forfeit $1
million.
In April, Eduardo Torres, Rodriguez’s
co-conspirator, pleaded guilty to the crime of providing a false drug
pedigree. He is scheduled to be
sentenced on Sept. 19, 2012.
The cases involving Rodriguez, Altec and
Torres were investigated by the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations. The cases were prosecuted by Assistant U.S.
Attorney Jon M. Juenger of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District
of Florida, and David A. Frank of the Justice Department’s Consumer Protection
Branch. Additional assistance was
provided by Joshua Eizen of the FDA’s Office of Chief Counsel for Enforcement.
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