WASHINGTON – DEA and nearly 4,500 law enforcement agencies joined forces last month to dispose of more than 620,000 pounds of unneeded and expired medications in an effort to prevent drug misuse and abuse. The spring collection event marked DEA’s 28th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. Since its inception...

Louisville, KY – Last week, a Franklin, Kentucky, pharmacist was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison and his wife was sentenced to 2 years in federal prison for engaging in a conspiracy to commit theft of medical products, conspiracy to unlawfully distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to commit health care...

A federal jury convicted a Kentucky doctor, a Texas businessman, and a Kentucky woman for their roles operating a scheme out of a series of addiction treatment facilities in Kentucky that fraudulently billed Medicare and Kentucky Medicaid for over $8 million. The verdict was handed down on Thursday, March 20...

MIAMI – A federal district judge in Ft. Pierce sentenced a husband and wife to federal prison yesterday for working with a foreign drug trafficking organization to distribute methamphetamine, opioids, and other controlled drugs purchased by customers from an online pharmacy. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon sentenced Vanessa Vanly...

GREENSBORO – A doctor from Mt. Airy, North Carolina was sentenced to 30 months of imprisonment and ordered to pay restitution totaling $2,049,747.47 after pleading guilty to one count of health care fraud and one count of money laundering, announced Acting United States Attorney Randall S. Galyon of the Middle...

EL PASO, Texas – A high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel was extradited from Mexico to El Paso, indicted for criminal charges related to his alleged federal racketeering, narcotics, money laundering, firearms, and continuing criminal enterprise offenses. According to court documents, Daniel Franco Lopez aka “Micha” aka “Neon” aka “Fer,”...

FLORENCE, S.C.— David Carlos Rodriguez, Jr., 50, of Florence, was sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to distributing Oxycodone outside the scope of medical practice and without a legitimate medical purpose. Evidence presented to the court showed that Rodriguez provided 15 prescriptions for Oxycodone over...

BENTON, Ill. – A district court judge sentenced two Houston, Texas, men to federal prison for burglarizing pharmacies of controlled substances in Casey, Illinois, and Poplar Bluff, Missouri. McKindley V. Allen, 32, and DaLeon J. Fontennet, 28, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary involving controlled substances, conspiracy to distribute...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – An Osage Beach, Mo., nurse pleaded guilty in federal court today to illegally obtaining fentanyl from a hospital for his own use. Charles Welch Jr., 65, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Roseann A. Ketchmark to a federal...

WASHINGTON – A federal court ordered an Elkin, North Carolina, pharmacy to pay a $500,000 penalty and enjoined the pharmacy and its pharmacists from dispensing controlled substances, including opioids, without taking steps to help ensure the drugs will not be abused or diverted. The consent decree resolves a complaint filed...