850-615-4060

Twenty-Four Indicted in Oxycodone
Trafficking and Health Care
Defendants Used Public Funds to Finance Trafficking in Oxycodone and Oxymorphone

FLORIDA --PENSACOLA  -- Mark R. Trouville, Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Christopher B. Dennis, Special Agent in Charge, Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), José A. Gonzalez, IRS Special Agent in Charge, Director James K. Loftus, Miami-Dade Police Department, Al Lamberti, Sheriff, Broward Sheriff’s Office, and H. Frank Farmer, M.D., State Surgeon General, Florida Department of Health (DOH), announced the unsealing of a federal indictment charging 24 defendants for their participation in, among other things, conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and oxymorphone, and conspiracy to defraud Medicare. Twenty-one of the defendants, including a doctor, a pharmacist and two pain clinic operators are currently in custody after a multi-agency takedown was executed early this morning. Three defendants, Hattie Mae Green, Eliezer Salgado and Ronald Regains, remain at large.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that Schedule II prescription painkillers like oxycodone today cause more drug overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined. Oxycodone and other Schedule II drugs have a high potential for abuse and can be crushed and snorted, or dissolved and injected to get an immediate high. This abuse can lead to addiction, overdose, and sometimes death.

The nine-count indictment filed on September 30, 2011 and unsealed today, charges all defendants with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, namely oxycodone and oxymorphone (Count 1), and conspiracy to commit health care fraud (Count 9). Several of the defendants also face substantive charges of possession with intent to distribute controlled substances (Counts 2-6, 8), and attempted possession of controlled substances (Count 7).

Charged in the indictment are Aiman Izzedin Aryan, 40, of Pinecrest, Emerson Carmona, 40, of Miami, Frank J. Ballesteros, M.D., 57, of Miami, Gerardo Gomez, 38, of Miami, Juan De Dios Gomez, 40, of Miami, Danay C. Manso, 22, of Miami, Danilo Falcon, 38 of Miami, Eliezer Salgado, 29, of Hialeah, Francisco Hernandez, 57, of Miami, Leroy Paige, 49, of Madison, Alyssa Lyn Paige, 32, of Madison, Cynthia Suzette Adderley, 53, of Ft. Pierce, Victor D. Alexander, 50, of Ft. Lauderdale, Aaron Lamar Allen, 44, of Ft. Lauderdale, Henry Louis Conley, Jr., 53, of Miami, Hattie Mae Green, 53, of Miami, Petronella Smith Howard, 52, of Ft. Pierce, Eric Fyke Miller, 42, of Ft. Lauderdale, Annie Mims Simmons, 72, of Miami, Bobbie Lee Anderson, 58, of Gifford, Denise Darcelle Dardy, 48, of Miami, Margaret Marie Elliott, 54, of Ft. Pierce, Billy Joe McCoy, 53,of Ft. Pierce, and Ronald Regains, 56, of Ft. Lauderdale.

DEA Special Agent in Charge Mark R. Trouville said, “The Drug Enforcement Administration continues its relentless attack on those who supply the prescription drug epidemic in our country, state, and local communities. With today’s arrests, twenty four people will no longer add to this drug problem.”

U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer stated, “According to recent estimates, Florida prescribes ten times more oxycodone pills than all other states combined. Each day, individuals die from prescription drug overdoses. To stop this drug epidemic, we have previously charged clinic owners, operators, and doctors who deal drugs while hiding behind a medical license. Today, we have focused our efforts on those pharmacies who are churning out pills that are fraudulently prescribed at area pain clinics. We will continue to tackle South Florida’s pill mill epidemic from all angles and at all levels to eradicate these drug dealing organizations.”

“Today’s multi-agency operation makes clear that drug trafficking and health care fraud make for a vile combination that simply cannot be tolerated,” said Christopher B. Dennis, Special Agent in Charge for the HHS-OIG region based in Miami. “Schemes to steal from taxpayers to pay for highly addictive, highly profitable street drugs , as the government alleges in this case, will trigger investigation and prosecution.”

“The Internal Revenue Service will continue to provide its financial investigative expertise to further the prosecution of criminals, especially those involved in complex financial schemes,” said IRS Special Agent in Charge Jose Gonzalez.

“The trafficking of oxycodone and oxymorphone has seeped into our community and extends beyond the borders of Miami-Dade County. We stand committed to working with our state and federal partners in the ongoing effort to apprehend these drug dealers who are destroying lives with their criminal behavior,” said Miami-Dade Police Department Director James K. Loftus.

“Through operations like this one, prescription drug peddlers are getting the message that pill pushing is no longer tolerated in Florida,” Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said. “Federal and local enforcement efforts have turned the tide but we need to keep up the good work.”

“The Florida Department of Health has been diligently working with our law enforcement partners to identify unscrupulous practitioners who are inappropriately prescribing controlled substances,” stated Florida Surgeon General Dr. Frank Farmer. “When DOH learns that a practitioner is not following the law, we suspend that practitioner’s license. We will aggressively continue to fight the prescription drug problem in Florida.”

According to the indictment, from as early as November 2007 September 2011, defendants Gerardo Gomez, Juan De Dios Gomez, and Danay C. Manso operated and utilized pain clinics in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. These pain clinics housed physicians, including defendant Frank J. Ballesteros, M.D., who would fraudulently prescribe oxycodone and oxymorphone for co-conspirator beneficiaries of Medicare and other prescription drug insurance plans. The beneficiaries would then present the fraudulent prescriptions obtained from the Gomezes’ pain clinics at complicit pharmacies operated by defendants Aiman Izzedin Aryan and Emerson Carmona. Once the prescriptions were filled, Aryan and Carmona would bill Medicare, and other insurers, for the cost of the prescriptions, knowing that the drugs were medically unnecessary and were being re-sold by the beneficiaries.

Defendants Leroy Paige, Alyssa Lyn Paige, Cynthia Suzette Adderley, Victor D. Alexander, Aaron Lamar Allen, Henry Louis Conley, Jr., Hattie Mae Green, Petronella Smith Howard, Eric Fyke Miller, and Annie Mims Simmons facilitated the drug-trafficking and health care fraud conspiracies by recruiting the corrupt health insurance beneficiaries to visit the Gomezes’ pain clinics and Dr. Ballesteros. Often, these recruiter defendants further participated by transporting the beneficiaries to the pain clinics to obtain the prescriptions and then to the pharmacies where they were filled. At the pharmacies, these defendants would receive and take control of the drugs from the beneficiaries. Once these defendants had the drugs, they would distribute them to Gerardo Gomez, Juan De Dios Gomez, Danilo Falcon, and Eliezer Salgado.

Defendants Bobbie Lee Anderson, Denise Darcelle Dardy, Margaret Marie Elliott, Billy Joe McCoy, and Ronald Regains were beneficiaries who posed as patients to obtain the fraudulent prescriptions for oxycodone and oxymorphone, which they then sold.

The indictment contains a forfeiture allegation seeking approximately $40,000,000, which is listed as the amount of proceeds derived by the defendants from the drug trafficking offenses charged in Counts 1 to 8 of the indictment.

If convicted, the defendants face a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on Counts 1 to 8, a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on Count 9. and a $350.000.000 fine.

An indictment is only an accusation and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Any call from this number is a scam!!!! Called DEA and they told me to avoid this and they are tracking down the callers

-- (Washington, DC)- New Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) regulations implementing the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 go into effect Monday, April 13. These regulations will help to prevent the illegal diversion of powerful controlled substances by means of the Internet. Such medications can cause harm to consumers for whom they were not intended. The Interim Final Rule was published in the Federal Register this week, and the public has 60 days from its publication date to submit comments to the DEA.

The Ryan Haight Act, named for an 18-year-old who died after overdosing on a prescription painkiller he obtained on the Internet from a medical doctor he never saw, was enacted on October 15, 2008 through the joint efforts of his mother, Francine Haight, and members of Congress, with the support of the DEA.

“Now that this law has been put into force it will be harder for cyber-criminals to ply controlled substances over the Internet and easier for us to prosecute them,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “These regulations add important new provisions to prevent the illegal distribution of controlled substances through the Internet. Its implementation will increase Internet safety and help prevent tragedies like Ryan Haight’s death from happening again.”

The statute amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) by adding several new provisions to prevent the illegal distribution of controlled substances by means of the Internet, including:

   New definitions, such as “online pharmacy” and “deliver, distribute, or dispense by means of the Internet”;
   A requirement of at least one face-to-face patient medical evaluation prior to issuance of a controlled substance prescription;
   Registration requirements for online pharmacies;
   Internet pharmacy website disclosure information requirements; and
   Prescription reporting requirements for online pharmacies.

Consistent with the CSA itself, the Ryan Haight Act relates solely to controlled substances, specifically, those psychoactive drugs and other substances–including narcotics, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, and anabolic steroids–that are placed in one of the five schedules of the CSA due to their potential for abuse and likelihood that they may cause psychological or physical dependence when abused. Controlled substances constitute approximately 10 percent of all drug prescriptions written in the United States. The amendments to the CSA made by the Ryan Haight Act, as well as the regulations being issued here, do not apply to non-controlled substances.

Consumers are advised that some websites operating on the Internet are legal, and others are not. Many of the legitimate Internet pharmacies have voluntarily sought certification as “Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites” from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. However, unscrupulous or “rogue” Internet pharmacies exist only to profit from the sale of controlled prescription medicines to buyers who do not have a legitimate medical need for the medications. These rogue sites lack quality assurance and accountability, and their products pose a distinct danger to buyers. They pretend to be authentic by operating legitimate-looking websites that advertise powerful drugs with the approval of a doctor, but such doctors are employees of the drug trafficking organization. Because prescription medications are powerful drugs that have legitimate uses but can also be harmful or even lethal, DEA maintains a hotline for reporting suspicious Internet pharmacies. Call 1-877-792-2873 or click on the “Report Suspicious Internet Pharmacies” icon on the home page of www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov.

Like Ryan Haight, nearly one in five teenagers has used a prescription medication to get high, according to the 2006 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) conducted by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The same survey found that two in five teens believe the fallacy that prescription medicines obtained without a prescription are “much safer” to use than illegal drugs. The 2007 Monitoring the Future survey sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 7 of the top 11 drugs abused by high school seniors are either prescription or over-the-counter medications. Unfortunately, prescription drugs are now the drug of choice for a large percentage of new initiates among teenagers, even surpassing marijuana.

For more information clarifying these new regulations, or for information on how to submit written or electronic comments about them within the 60-day comment period, go to www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov. For more information on Ryan Haight, go to www.getsmartaboutdrugs.com/stories/ryan_haights_story.html. For general information about drugs (including prescription drugs), drug abuse, and prevention, go to www.getsmartaboutdrugs.com.

READ THIS BEFORE PURCHASING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS OVER THE INTERNET !!!

DEA Warning--Buying drugs online may be illegal and dangerous!

Federal law prohibits buying controlled substances such as narcotic pain relievers (e.g., OxyContin®, Vicodin®), sedatives (e.g., Valium®, Xanax®, Ambien®), stimulants (e.g., phentermine, phendimetrazine, Adderall®, Ritalin®) and anabolic steroids (e.g., Winstrol®, Equipoise®) without a valid prescription from your doctor. This means there must be a real doctor-patient relationship, which by most state laws requires a physical examination. Prescriptions written by "cyber doctors" relying on online questionnaires are not legitimate under the law.

Buying controlled substances online without a valid prescription may be punishable by imprisonment under Federal law. Often drugs ordered from rogue websites come from foreign countries. It is a felony to import drugs into the United States and ship to a non-DEA registrant.

Buying drugs online may not be only illegal, but dangerous. The American Medical Association and state boards of medicine and pharmacy have all condemned the practice of cyber doctors issuing online prescriptions as unacceptable medical care. Drugs delivered by rogue websites may be the wrong drugs, adulterated or expired, the wrong dosage strength, or have no dosage directions or warnings.

DEA is targeting rogue online pharmacies for prosecution and shutting down these illegal websites. See the results of one such investigation, Operation Cyber Chase, at www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr042005.html.

To report illegal prescription drug sales and/or rogue pharmacies operating on the Internet call the anonymous Pharmaceutical Drug

Genesis 3:16 the truth is that the day they started making drugs illegal is the day this once a free country started going communistic. Its not the drug, its the people using them. God made drugs for a reason and people like myself need them because our bodies are falling apart. Unfortunately i have to keep working to pay my bills so do you really think that your justified in thinking that its ok to take away my drugs that i need. What if i took your car, i mean face it,,1.3 million people die every year in car accidents. Why not make cars illegal. And how about guns, next you'll take away guns, pretty much whatever suits your fancy right? I wish i didn't need drugs like i do but i do. And just because you don't, doesn't mean you have the right to control what i put in my body. I guarantee that someday your gonna be in pain. What do you plan to do than, when your in pain  and still have to labor everyday to pay for your expensive pain pills because people like yourself r control freaks

Genesis 3:16 the truth is that the day they started making drugs illegal is the day this once a free country started going communistic. Its not the drug, its the people using them. God made drugs for a reason and people like myself need them because our bodies are falling apart. Unfortunately i have to keep working to pay my bills so do you really think that your justified in thinking that its ok to take away my drugs that i need. What if i took your car, i mean face it,,1.3 million people die every year in car accidents. Why not make cars illegal. And how about guns, next you'll take away guns, pretty much whatever suits your fancy right? I wish i didn't need drugs like i do but i do. And just because you don't, doesn't mean you have the right to control what i put in my body. I guarantee that someday your gonna be in pain. What do you plan to do than, when your in pain  and still have to labor everyday to pay for your expensive pain pills because people like yourself r control freaks

Genesis 3:16 the truth is that the day they started making drugs illegal is the day this once a free country started going communistic. Its not the drug, its the people using them. God made drugs for a reason and people like myself need them because our bodies are falling apart. Unfortunately i have to keep working to pay my bills so do you really think that your justified in thinking that its ok to take away my drugs that i need. What if i took your car, i mean face it,,1.3 million people die every year in car accidents. Why not make cars illegal. And how about guns, next you'll take away guns, pretty much whatever suits your fancy right? I wish i didn't need drugs like i do but i do. And just because you don't, doesn't mean you have the right to control what i put in my body. I guarantee that someday your gonna be in pain. What do you plan to do than, when your in pain  and still have to labor everyday to pay for your expensive pain pills because people like yourself r control freaks