FORMER SPRINGFIELD PHARMACIST SENTENCED FOR SELLING RECYCLED AND SAMPLE DRUGS

BOSTON, MA - A former Longmeadow man was sentenced Monday in federal court for mail fraud, health care fraud, sale of drug samples, sale of misbranded drugs and filing false tax returns.

United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Joseph C. Moraski, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General - Office of Investigations, Warren T. Bamford, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation New England Field Division, Mark Dragonetti, Resident Agent in Charge of the Food and Drug Administration, Office of Inspector General - Office of Criminal Investigation and Douglas A. Bricker, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation - Boston Field Office, announced today that MONTY SCHWARTZ, age 64, formerly of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and now of Oakland, Florida, was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment, to be followed by two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $459,000 in restitution to the state Medicaid program.

At the earlier plea hearing, the prosecutor told the Court that had the case proceeded to trial the Government’s evidence would have proven that SCHWARTZ, the owner and chief pharmacist at the former Shoppers Drug, Inc. in Springfield, re-sold drugs that had been returned by customers as well as not-for-resale drug samples. SCHWARTZ instructed his employees to remove the returned and sample drugs from their original packaging and put them back in stock bottles where they were used for filling new prescriptions. In this process, the lot numbers of the drugs were lost leaving the store without the ability to track the pills in the case of a recall.

In addition, expiration dates were not tracked on the returned and sample pills. SCHWARTZ pled guilty to violating federal drug laws designed to protect consumers and to fraudulently billing Medicaid and private health insurers for these illegally dispensed drugs. With respect to the tax charges, the prosecutor told the court that the Government’s evidence would have proven that SCHWARTZ carried a relative on Shopper’s payroll, deducting her wages as a business expense even though she did not work for the company.

The case was investigated by the FBI, HHS-OIG, FDA-OCI and the IRS. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen L. Goodwin of Sullivan’s Springfield Branch Office.