Sixteen people in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia have been indicted on drug charges in connection with what authorities call "pill mills"posing as pain management clinics, federal authorities said Thursday.
U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said clinics in Elkridge, Oxon Hill, Greenbelt and Washington doled out prescriptions of oxycodone to "runners" who posed as patients.
The runners would hand the pills over to distributors to be sold on the street, Rosenstein said.
"The street value of these diverted oxycodone pills is many times the retail value at pharmacies, so that's why this crime is so attractive," Rosenstein told reporters Thursday at a news conference to announce three indictments.
Defendants include clinic operators, who Rosenstein said profited from operations at the clinic and sales of oxycodone.
"The most significant drug dealers that we are charging today are not standing on street corners handing out dime bags of heroin," he said. "They're people who are wearing suits and ties and managing medical offices."
Alexi Mori, 29, of Nanjemoy and Thomas Dalton, 29, of Waldorf in Southern Maryland were charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone. Authorities say they owned and operated First Priority Health Care in Elkridge.
No one answered Thursday at a phone number listed for the clinic. It is unclear whether Mori or Dalton have attorneys. Neither could be reached for comment.
Authorities say First Priority opened in 2013. In a typical month, they say, the clinic would see at least 200 fake patients who would each receive at least 100 oxycodone pills. They say the 20,000 pills would be worth a total of $600,000 on the street.
Authorities say they intercepted a conversation last October in which they say the defendants discussed hiring a recruiter after a doctor expressed concerns about writing oxycodone prescriptions and backed out.
In another intercepted conversation, they say, Dalton defended their operation to an unnamed person by saying, "What we doing, we pretty much save their [expletive] lives because, it might continue their habit, but we're keeping 'em from [expletive] going to self-medicate."
Fourteen people from Maryland and Virginia, including the owners of MPC Wellness Center in Greenbelt, PG Wellness Center in Oxon Hill and A Plus Pain Clinic in Washington, were also charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone.
Rosenstein described a complex, "resource-intensive" investigation that included informants and wiretaps, and said it continues as prosecutors sort through evidence collected when 14 search warrants were executed on Wednesday.
Investigators are looking at the doctors who wrote the prescriptions and the pharmacists who filled them, he said.
"In some cases they were not criminally culpable, they may have been misled themselves," Rosenstein said. "They may have reported to law enforcement, but for the ones who didn't, we need to recognize that these are our gatekeepers."
Rosenstein said the charges show that programs to monitor prescription drugs are necessary.
Maryland, he said, "has a relatively weak program." He said better laws could provide "a solution to the heroin crisis."
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