Sandy Mai Trang Nguyen, a former licensed pharmacist in Irvine, Calif., was found guilty on 21 counts of healthcare fraud and sentenced to 180 months in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II also ordered Ms. Nguyen to pay $11,098,756 in restitution.
As the former lead pharmacist at the Irvine Wellness Pharmacy, Ms. Nguyen was part of a scheme that filled more than 1,000 fake prescriptions, costing the Tricare, the health program for uniformed service members and families, more than $11 million.
"Nguyen and others under her supervision filled approximately 1,150 compounded prescriptions for pain, scarring and migraines that Tricare reimbursed for tens of thousands of dollars per prescription," according to an April 3 news release from the U.S. District Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. "Nearly all the prescriptions were sent to the pharmacy by so-called marketers who were paid kickbacks of upwards of 50 percent of the Tricare reimbursements."
Evidence alleges that Ms. Nguyen was aware of what was going on and additionally obstructed a federal audit "by providing bogus, cut-and-pasted prescriptions to frustrate Tricare's effort to validate millions of dollars paid for the same prescriptions," the release states.
"At [Nguyen's] trial, the government proved that [Nguyen] knew that IWP was, essentially, a fraud factory that was churning out prescriptions solely to make a fast buck," prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. "She routinely ignored the numerous red flags that indicated that the prescriptions were fraudulent."
A co-defendant in the case, Marcus Orlando Armstrong, received nine and a half years in federal prison. Others involved have pleaded guilty to their charges, but have yet to receive sentencing.