Pharmaceutical of the Dallas area sentenced to prison for $ 145 million in medical care fraud

A pharmacist from northern Texas was sentenced to prison for a billionaire scheme to disappoint the federal government Of millions of dollars for skin creams.

Dehshid “David” Nourian was sentenced last month to 17 1/2 years in prison for Medical care fraudmoney laundering and fraud of the United States government. The court also ordered Nourian, 62, to pay $ 115 million in restitution and lost more than $ 400 million in assets.

Nuriano, from FlatHe has appealed the ruling, according to judicial documents. A pharmacist’s lawyer did not immediately respond to an email or phone call on Tuesday from Dallas’s morning news.

Federal prosecutors say that the children and partners paid doctors millions of dollars in bribes and bribes to prescribe expensive and unnecessary composite creams for pain and scars from 2014 to 2017. The doctors sent the prescriptions to a handful of pharmacies operated by Nourian and its partners, including the pharmacy of the ability in Fort Worth and Park Row Row Pharmacy in Arlington.

Composite pharmacies Adapt certain medications to individual patients, usually in small lots, altering the doses, mix medications or convert pills into liquids. These pharmacies once attended to individual patients, but were given without control in lucrative drug distribution operations, selling bulk products throughout the country and internationally.

After an explosion of expensive claims that involve compound medications, the Department of Defense in 2015 began to limit such drugs for members of the military service and their families. Almost at the same time, the Department of Justice began to take energetic measures against what it called generalized fraud involving specialized pharmacies.

In the case of Nourian, patients included wounded postal workers and other government employees, some of whom were already taking strong analgesics.

In the rear rooms of the compound pharmacies, the not trained teenagers mixed the creams for approximately $ 15 per recipe. Then, the pharmacies announced the Office of Workers Compensation Programs of the Department of Labor and Blue Cross Blue Shield for up to $ 16,000 per recipe, totaling approximately $ 145 million in fraudulent claims.

The patients who received the creams said in the trial that the creams were ineffective and, in some cases, resulted in painful and irritating skin eruptions.

Prosecutors say that the nornia and others washed the money through a complex network of bank accounts and ghost companies to avoid paying $ 24 million in federal income taxes.

“This 17 -year judgment sends a clear message that our prosecutors, who work on the shoulders with our investigation partners, will identify, investigate and process even the most sophisticated fraud schemes that point to the taxpayer’s money and put the patients,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, head of the criminal division of the Department of Justice, in a written statement.

Fort Worth’s Pharmacist Christopherg, and Dr. Michael Taba, from McKinney, were also sentenced in the scheme and waited for the sentence.

Staff writer Kevin Krause contributed to this report.