| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 23, 2008 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
SAN JOSE– United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced that David John, 43, of Antioch, Tennessee, was sentenced yesterday to five months in prison and five months in home detention for his role as the chief financial officer of United Care Pharmacy (“UCP”), a company that illegally fulfilled prescriptions for controlled substances received over the internet.
Mr. John pleaded guilty in June of 2007, to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. At his earlier plea hearing, Mr. John admitted that UCP fulfilled orders for internet pharmacies, and operated a program that contracted with physicians to provide sham medical prescriptions for “patients” seeking to illegally obtain certain types of abused controlled substances over the internet, without medical supervision. The physicians were typically sitting thousands of miles away from the individuals, and never conducted any physical examinations. Instead, the physicians approved the requests for prescriptions based solely on on-line questionnaires filled out by the patients. UCP then downloaded these prescriptions, packaged the drugs, and sent them to patients across the United States, including to the Northern District of California. In addition, despite having a pharmacist on-site to help package and ship drugs, UCP never verified the authenticity or appropriateness of any prescriptions before allowing the drugs to be sent out.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald M. Whyte. Judge Whyte also sentenced the defendant to a one-year period of supervised release, and ordered the defendant to pay a $2,000 fine and forfeit the financial proceeds of his crime. The defendant will begin serving the imprisonment portion of his sentence on January 6, 2009.
Assistant U.S. Attorney S. Waqar Hasib is prosecuting the case. The prosecution is the result of a 2 and a half year investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Further Information:
Case #: 06-00748-RMW
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