OxyContin Health Insurance Scam

In a second wave since the initial arrest in 2005’s OxyContin health insurance scam, the Miami-Dade Police and State Department arrested 62 additional people, of which 56 were government employees, including a police officer, a felony court clerk, two corrections officers and 17 school bus drivers.

“We get people who get arrested for drug abuse and possession all the time, but it’s different when government employees are involved,” Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office Media Relations Spokesperson Terrie Chavez said.

All 62 people face charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and grand theft. According to prosecutors, the six so called recruiters found these public employees willing to use their health benefits for prescription fraud.

The initial scam dates to January of 2003, when six recruiters enlisted a group of mostly local government employees, to participate in an illegal drug ring in which they fraudulently obtained prescriptions from physician Ronald Harris for the painkiller known as OxyContin.

“The same doctor, Ronald Harris, was involved in both cases,” Chavez said. “In the initial arrest in 2005, all of the people that went down with him were the same type of people as in this current case.”

According to Federal Court documents, Dr. Ronald Harris, who is represented by the court appointed Jan Smith, has revoked his initial plea, and plans to plead guilty on five counts in a future hearing.

“During Ronal Harris’s initial arrest, a lessened plea was negotiated for further information, which eventually lead to these arrests,” Chavez said.

In August of 2005, a total of 29 defendants were charged by the Federal Prosecutors Office; 22 of which were county and city school board employees.

These public employees presented their prescriptions at local pharmacies to obtain the OxyContin tablets, which they would then sell for quick cash to their recruiters or pushers.

“The real villains are these pushers, who target the weak,” Chavez said. “They target bus drivers, who find themselves without employment for three to four months out of the year, with the prospect of easy money.”

In addition to claiming fraudulent prescriptions, the employees submitted their insurance claims to their employer issued health insurance company, fraudulently claiming reimbursement for the cost of the prescriptions.  

For government employees, it was their taxpayer-subsidized health insurance benefits that allowed them to fill fake prescriptions for the painkiller and provide the drug to black market dealers.

“For the number of folks working for the government, including myself, there are a great deal of benefits which the private sector does not have,” Chavez said.” “When you abuse your benefits all of us end up paying for it, and these people abused their benefits.”

Since the initial roundup in August of 2005 by Mark Trouville, Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department has conducted a three-year investigation to bring down this second wave of criminals.

“The first case was a federal indictment since it was an organized racketeering group,” Chavez said. “After that we continued our own investigation, and everything trickled down from there. You have to collect good evidence to prosecute, and with the first 29 they had hard evidence.”

As stated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, OxyContin is a prescription painkiller used for moderate to high pain relief associated with injuries, bursitis, dislocations, fractures, neuralgia, arthritis, lower back pain, and pain associated with cancer. It contains oxycodone, the medication's active ingredient, in a timed-release tablet. However, when abused, the drug can be deadly.

“It is a drug commonly misused to get high, but its purpose is to aid cancer patients to relieve pain,” Chavez said.

Authorities estimate that approximately 130 medically unnecessary prescriptions for OxyContin, more than 12,000 tablets, were presented to the pharmacies with an estimated street value of $400,000.

“There can never be an excuse for helping put dangerous drugs onto our streets,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle stated in a press release. “When public employees are a part of the problem and when public medical benefits are used to make the scheme work, these are shameful events. They are also crimes.”

According to Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesman John Schuster, district employees who were arrested will be reassigned to positions were they will not come in contact with students.

“The impact we are most concerned with is people losing faith in their government workers,” Chavez said. “Luckily these school employees only passed the drugs back to their pushers, but there is always a lingering doubt in parents’ mind.”