A Houston pharmacist has admitted her role in a multi-million-dollar health care fraud scheme that preyed on federal benefit programs. Nermin Awad El-Hadik, 40, owner of Hope Pharmacy, Inc., pleaded guilty yesterday to paying more than $5.3 million in illegal kickbacks to a Texas chiropractor in exchange for patient referrals and influence over compounded medication prescriptions.
El-Hadik appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin in Austin and entered a guilty plea to a single count of willful offer and payment of illegal remuneration related to a federal health care program. The charges stem from conduct between March and December 2015, when El-Hadik funneled $5,334,303.04 in cash to Garry Wayne Craighead, a chiropractor who controlled a network of eight clinics across Texas — in Dallas, Fort Worth, Killeen, Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Weslaco, and Beaumont.
Craighead’s clinics generated significant revenue from the U.S. Department of Labor’s health care benefit programs. In return for El-Hadik’s payments, he referred federally insured employees to Hope Pharmacy and used his influence to pressure physicians into prescribing high-cost compounded medications. Those prescriptions were then filled at El-Hadik’s pharmacy, driving fraudulent claims and payouts.
El-Hadik now faces up to five years in federal prison and has agreed to pay more than $5 million in restitution. She remains on bond pending sentencing before U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks in Austin. No date has been set for that hearing.
Craighead was sentenced on June 10, 2016, to 14 years in federal prison after pleading guilty on December 4, 2015, to one count of solicitation and receipt of illegal remunerations and one count of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity. He was ordered to pay over $17 million in restitution to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The investigation was led by the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s Major Procurement Fraud Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, and the U.S. Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorneys James Blankinship and Mark Marshall are prosecuting the case for the government.
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Key Facts
- State: Texas
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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