George Tompkins , a Texas pharmacist from Houston, was recently given a 10-year prison term after a jury convicted him of multiple felony counts, including health care fraud, money laundering and wire fraud. Known as the “compound king”, the 75-year-old was also convicted of conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks. Mr. Tomkins was first arraigned on the 17-count indictment back in February 2018.
The evidence received by the court during the 6-day jury trial suggested that Mr. Tompkins, working with others, devised a health care prescription fraud scheme whereby they unlawfully received almost twenty-two million dollars in government payments for prescriptions that were medically unnecessary. The money was paid to Tomkins by the Department of Labor, and most of the prescriptions were given to patients referred to them by and through their contract to provide such services to state and federal employees. The payments were contracted through the Federal Employees Compensation Act program (FECA). Many hundreds of patients were involved in this prescription fraud scheme.
To assist in their criminal enterprise, Mr. Tompkins and his cohorts created a couple different shell companies through which much of the fraud was run. They used these companies to launder their ill-gotten proceeds. Part of the fraud involved continuing to ship prescriptions to their “patients” even after they had repeatedly been told to stop sending them.
On top of the overt fraud, Mr. Tompkins and his co-conspirators “cooked the books” by trying to make the illegal payments and kick backs look legitimate by, among other things, calling them marketing expenses.
68-year-old Marene Tomkins, George Tompkins’ wife, was also part of the conspiracy and she plead guilty prior to the trial. She ended up serving only 30 days of home confinement followed by 36 months of supervised probation. Additionally, both defendants were sentenced to pay nearly 13 Million in restitution and forfeiture.
The crimes were uncovered by the Fraud Section of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which is part of the Federal Governments Department of Justice. The Strike Force, one of 15 around the country, was started in 2007. In the ensuing 13 years, the Strike Force has prosecuted more than four thousand defendants who together were responsible for medical health care fraud of almost 20 Billion Dollars. The big money involved serves as an enticement to those who may, for various reasons, be inclined to engage in such criminal activity.
The health care fraud lawyers at the Barone Defense Firm watched this case closely as it evolved over the ensuing two years. Keith Corbett, the former head of the DOJ organized crime. He currently heads up the health care fraud division at the Firm and indicated that this case was typical of those prosecuted by the department when he was at the DOJ. Now on the defense side, Mr. Corbett is considered among the top health care white collar criminal defense attorneys in the Nation.
If you are being investigated for health care, prescription, or Medicare fraud, contact the Barone Defense Firm for your free no obligation case evaluation. Mr. Corbett will help you understand your rights, and if necessary, provide you with the best possible legal defense to any charges brought against you.