Eight Dallas-area pharmacy owners and marketers were charged in an indictment unsealed today for their roles in a scheme involving approximately $92 million in compound drug claims to TRICARE and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), which were allegedly the product of over $9.1 million in illegal kickbacks.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Special Agent in Charge Michael Mentavlos of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) Southwest Field Office, Special Agent in Charge Steven Grell of the U.S. Department of Labor - Office of Inspector General’s (DOL-OIG) Dallas Region and Special Agent in Charge CJ Porter of the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Services (HHS-OIG) made the announcement.

Richard Hall, 48; Scott Schuster, 47; Dustin Rall, 43; George Lock Paret, 34; and Michael Ranelle, 49, all of Fort Worth, Texas; John Le, 43, of Dallas; Quintan Cockerell, 37, of Manhattan Beach, California; and Turner Luke Zeutzius, 36, of Horseshoe Bay, Texas, were each charged in an indictment filed Dec. 12 in the Northern District of Texas with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive kickbacks.  Hall, Schuster, Rall, and Le were each additionally charged with four counts of paying kickbacks.  Zeutzius was additionally charged with two counts of receiving kickbacks and Ranelle and Cockerell were each charged with one count of receiving kickbacks.  Hall, Schuster, Rall, Le and Ranelle were arrested yesterday and had their initial court appearances before U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Irma C. Ramirez in Dallas.   Paret, Cockerell and Zeutzius self-surrendered this morning and will have their initial court appearances today at 2 p.m. CST before Judge Ramirez.

According to the indictment, from May 2014 to September 2016, Hall, Schuster, Rall, Paret, Le and their co-conspirators allegedly engaged in a scheme to pay kickbacks and bribes for the referral of TRICARE and DOL beneficiaries to obtain expensive compound drugs.  Hall, Shuster and Rall were co-owners of Rxpress Pharmacy and Xpress Compounding, compound pharmacies located at 1000 W. Weatherford St. in Fort Worth. 

As alleged in the indictment, Rxpress and Xpress were separate in name only; Rxpress Pharmacy and Xpress Compounding employed the same staff, operated out of the same building, and utilized a call center to direct prescriptions depending on whether the prescriptions were for private or federal insurance.  The indictment alleges that both companies utilized the same marketers but paid them differently depending on whether they were receiving a commission on a federal or private prescription, in order to disguise the illegal kickback payments on federal prescriptions.  Specifically, Hall, Schuster, Rall, Paret and Le allegedly devised a scheme to make kickback payments to marketers through Xpress Compounding for the referral of federal prescriptions.  These marketers were allegedly set up as sham “W-2” employees to appear as though they were bona fide employees of Xpress Compounding.  At the same time, these marketers were paid as 1099 contractors by Rxpress Pharmacy, the indictment alleges. 

The indictment alleges that as a result of the scheme, Zeutzius was paid approximately $4.4 million, Cockerell (through an unnamed person) was paid approximately $2.1 million, and Ranelle was paid approximately $2.6 million in illegal kickbacks, for a total of approximately $9.1 million in illegal kickbacks. 

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

DCIS, DOL-OIG, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General investigated the case.  Assistant Chief Adrienne Frazior and Trial Attorney Brynn Schiess of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.

The Fraud Section leads the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which is part of a joint initiative between the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country.  Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which maintains 14 strike forces operating in 23 districts, has charged nearly 4,000 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $14 billion.

WASHINGTON – Five of six alleged members of an international criminal conspiracy were arrested and appeared before the Court in Dallas, Texas on charges related to their alleged roles in an international fraud scheme that has used counterfeit driver’s licenses and counterfeit money orders to obtain monies from victim bank accounts around the United States.

The arrests and charges were announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox for the Northern District of Texas; and Inspector in Charge Regina Faulkerson of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Criminal Investigations Group.

John Lewis Davis II, 43, and Rasheed Wriden, 34, both of Dallas; Valandus Javon Gibson, 28 of Chicago, Illinois; Ralph Deon Taylor, 47, of Long Beach, California; and Craig Allen, 70, of Phoenix, Arizona, were all charged in a 14-count indictment unsealed on Thursday.

Davis, Gibson, Taylor, Allen, and Wriden are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.

Davis, Gibson, and Allen, are charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Davis, Allen, and Wriden are charged with mail fraud.

Davis, Taylor, Allen, and Wriden are charged with possession and transmission of counterfeit money orders.

Davis, Taylor, and Allen are charged with transferring counterfeit driver’s licenses.

The indictment alleges that from about April 2013 to December 2017, the defendants conspired with each other and individuals in other countries including Nigeria to obtain money through various acts of fraud.  This included posting misleading advertisements of detailed descriptions of job opportunities, such as for mystery shopper positions, that were not valid job opportunities.  The defendants are alleged to have conspired to pose as employers of these fraudulent job opportunities to lure victims, who resided throughout the United States and Canada.

The defendants are alleged to have conspired to obtain counterfeited driver’s licenses and money orders, which were shipped into the United States.  The counterfeited money orders were shipped to co-conspirators, who then mailed them to unwitting victims who were under the mistaken belief that they were fulfilling the job duties of mystery shopper positions.  The victims were instructed to deposit the counterfeit money orders and securities, mailed as payment for the mystery shopper jobs, into personal bank accounts and send a portion of the monies via money transfer businesses, to individuals known and unknown in the United States and elsewhere.  After the unwitting victims cashed the counterfeited money orders and wired money to co-conspirators, the co-conspirators are alleged to have retrieved the wire transfers with the use of a counterfeited driver’s license.

According to the indictment, the purpose of the conspiracy was to fraudulently obtain monies from counterfeited U.S. Postal money orders and counterfeit checks, by sending and receiving them through the U.S. Postal Service and commercial carriers to other individuals, who would then negotiate the money orders and checks and wire the funds to the defendants using money service businesses.

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the Rowlett Police Department.

The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Leshia Lee-Dixon of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney David Jarvis from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas – Dallas Division.

# # #