News Release
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Rhode Island
April 30, 2008
Providence woman admits forging prescriptions in $138,000 health care fraud
Carol M. DiPina, of Providence, has pleaded guilty to federal drug distribution and health care fraud charges. DiPina admitted that she forged prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone on stolen forms and had other persons fill the prescriptions at various pharmacies. They obtained the prescriptions at little or no cost because health insurers, including Medicaid, reimbursed the pharmacies. DiPina either sold the pharmaceuticals obtained through the prescriptions or traded them for crack cocaine.
United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente announced the guilty plea, which DiPina entered yesterday before Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mary M. Lisi in U.S. District Court, Providence.
At the plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adi Goldstein said the government could prove that DiPina obtained pads of blank prescription forms from Rhode Island Hospital. She then forged prescriptions for various drugs, including OxyContin, Percocet, Roxicet, and Vicodin. She wrote the prescriptions in the names of individuals who were beneficiaries of Rhode Island Medicaid, Blue Cross Blue Shield RiteCare, or private insurance. She sometimes used her own maiden name, Carol Sheed.
DiPina paid associates to have the prescriptions filled at pharmacies. They gave her the medications, sometimes keeping some for themselves, and she either sold the rest or traded it for crack cocaine. After being arrested in September for possessing a forged OxyContin prescription, one of DiPina’s associates told investigators that DiPina would pay him between $50 and $90 for each OxyContin prescription that he had filled.
A search of DiPina’s apartment in January turned up a shoe box containing Rhode Island Hospital prescriptions for controlled substances. Agents also seized prescription pill bottles, ledgers containing the names of DiPina’s customers, health insurance information of other individuals, physicians’ names and their DEA registration numbers, and crack pipes.
Through the forged prescriptions, DiPina obtained about 307,000 milligrams of OxyContin (a typical pill contains between 40-80 mg) for her and her customers, plus about 13,100 dosage units of hydrocodone. Between 2001 and January 2008, Medicaid reimbursed pharmacies about $121,000 for the fraudulent prescriptions, and Blue Cross Blue Shield reimbursed about $17,000.
DiPina, 55, pleaded guilty to four charges: conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, distributing a controlled substance, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and health care fraud. The maximum penalty for the charges are: conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and distributing a controlled substance – 20 years imprisonment and a $1,000,000 fine; conspiracy to commit health care fraud – five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine; health care fraud – ten years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000.
DiPina is detained, pending sentencing, which is scheduled for September 5.
The Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations Task Force, and the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigated the case.