A pharmacist and pharmacy technician in Michigan were charged March 17 with conspiracy to illegally distribute prescription drugs, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to the indictment, Cosmos George, PharmD, a pharmacist working at Dearborn, Mich.-based Village Script East Pharmacy, conspired with Tarielle Dixon, a pharmacy technician working at Detroit-based Nottingham Pharmacy, to dispense prescription opioids for fictitious patients without a legitimate medical need for the drugs from September 2017 through June 2020.
Dr. George, 44 of Southfield, Mich., and Ms. Dixon, 33, of Detroit, primarily dispensed oxycodone and oxymorphone, two highly addictive opioids with high black market resale values, according to the indictment.
The indictment says the two pharmacies dispensed more than 41,995 dosage units of Schedule II opioid prescriptions from September 2017 to June 2020. It also says those substances had a conservative street value of $1.2 million.
If convicted, Dr. George and Ms. Dixon face a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.