News Release [print friendly page]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 21, 2005

St. Louis, Missouri: The former Chief Operating Officer of Easy Returns Worldwide, Inc. has been indicted in connection with a $900,000 mail fraud scheme involving pharmaceuticals, Preston L. Grubbs, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) St. Louis Division and United States Attorney James G. Martin announced yesterday.

This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Assistant United States Attorney Carrie Costantin is handling the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

RICHARD J. DRURY, 55, of the 6000 block of Wells Road, St. Louis, 63128, was indicted by a federal grand jury on four felony counts of mail fraud. He is expected to appear in federal court next week.

If convicted, Drury faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and/or a fine of $250,000, per count.

According to the indictment, Easy Returns is a reverse distributor of pharmaceuticals. As part of the services that they provided to client pharmacies, Easy Returns returned recently expired pharmaceuticals to the appropriate manufacturers for a credit to the client pharmacy. Easy Returns charged the pharmacy a 5-10% fee which was based on the expected credits from the manufacturer. As part of the services provided to client distributors, Easy Returns destroyed recently expired pharmaceuticals and the distributor received a credit from the manufacturer. Between August 2000 and January 2002, Drury, as COO of Easy Returns devised and participated in a scheme to create fraudulent returns to pharmaceutical manufacturers causing the manufacturers to credit various pharmacies for returns that did not belong to them. These pharmacies paid a 33% fee to Drury and Easy Returns for the false returns credited to them.

The charges set forth in an indictment are merely accusations, and each defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.