FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 28, 2009
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DOCTOR CHARGED WITH WRITING PRESCRIPTIONS OVER THE INTERNET FOR PEOPLE WHOM HE HAD NEVER MET OR EXAMINED
BOSTON, MA - A Virginia doctor was charged today in federal court with writing prescriptions over the Internet for people whom he had never met or examined and tax evasion.
Acting United States Attorney Michael K. Loucks, Mark Dragonetti, Resident Agent in Charge of the Food and Drug Administration - Office of Criminal Investigations and Susan Dukes, Special Agent in Charge for the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation - Boston Field Office, announced today that DR. TORINO JENNINGS of Mechanicsville, Virginia, was charged in an eleven count Information with seven counts of Introducing Misbranded Drugs into Interstate Commerce and Four Counts of Tax Evasion. The Information charges that the drugs, shipments of the muscle relaxant SOMA, were misbranded as a matter of law because they were dispensed without a valid prescription .
The Information alleges that between 2004 and 2007, JENNINGS issued between 50,000 and 100,000 prescriptions over the Internet for SOMA, and other drugs, to individuals whom he had never performed a physical examination on and had never met. It is further alleged that he did so based on forms completed by individuals for online pharmacies. According to the Information, the online pharmacies paid JENNINGS between $5.00 and $7.00 for each prescription he wrote. According to the Information, virtually no request for drugs submitted by the online pharmacies to JENNINGS for endorsement was ever rejected.
The Information also alleges that JENNINGS knowingly and intentionally did not report the money he was paid by the online pharmacies for issuing the prescriptions to the Internal Revenue Service.
If convicted on these charges, JENNINGS faces up to five years imprisonment, to be followed by up to three years of supervised release and a fine between $100,000 and $250,000 per count.
The case was investigated by the Food and Drug Administration - Office of Criminal Investigations and the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigations, with assistance from the Virginia State Police, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Drug Diversion Unit. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Stephen P. Heymann of Loucks’ Computer Crime Unit.
The details contained in the Information are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
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