Feds Bust Montco Doctor, Philadelphia Pharmacist For Dealing Pills
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A family physician and a pharmacist are among dozens of people arrested in connection with a 498-count indictment alleging drug dealing and health care fraud.
The way US attorney Zane Memeger tells it, this was an oxycodone "triple play" in which alleged drug dealer William Stukes lined up fake patients to go to the Montgomery County office of Dr. Norman Werther.
"These fake patients paid an office-visit fee," explains Memeger. "Dr. Werther would then write prescriptions for these fake patients to obtain oxycodone-based drugs. Members of the Stukes drug trafficking organization would then drive the fake patients to various pharmacies to have their prescriptions filled."
Northeast Pharmacy and its owner, Ihsanullah Maaf, got a lot of this business, say the feds, so he too has been arrested.
The fake patients often billed government-run insurance for the ill-gotten pills. The government calls that health care fraud.
Reported by John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio 1060
