Two owners of a pharmaceutical wholesale company were sentenced Friday to a total of 38 years in prison for orchestrating a complex, nationwide drug diversion scheme that harmed vulnerable HIV-positive patients, placed countless others at risk, and corrupted the supply chain for prescription drugs in the United States.
“Patrick and Charles Boyd did not just commit fraud and cost taxpayers millions of dollars, they preyed upon some of the most vulnerable members of our society: HIV patients who depend on life-saving treatments to manage their disease,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Fraud schemes like this one undermine the integrity of our supply chain for necessary prescription drugs. These defendants will rightly spend years in prison for their reprehensible conduct, which took advantage of people for illicit profit. This case is another example of how the Criminal Division, our United States Attorney partner in the Southern District of Florida, and law enforcement will pursue and seek convictions of those who defraud our systems, endanger our citizens, and seek to line their pockets with fraud proceeds.”
“These defendants treated life-saving HIV medication like street contraband,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. “They bought drugs off the street from black-market suppliers, shipped them in dirty boxes and discarded packaging, falsified paperwork, and pushed those medications back into the legitimate pharmaceutical supply chain. The consequences were real. HIV patients received bottles containing the wrong drugs, and at least one patient lost consciousness after ingesting medication that should never have been in that bottle. As a former military prosecutor, federal prosecutor, and trial judge, I have seen how greed can drive dangerous schemes. When criminals gamble with patient safety for profit, federal prison is the result.”
“Friday’s sentence underscores the extreme danger these defendants created,” said Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott J. Lampert of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS‑OIG). “They took life‑threatening actions that showed an alarming disregard for human life in service of nothing more than a payday. Their criminal scheme endangered vulnerable patients, put entire communities at risk, and undermined the integrity of Medicare and Medicaid. HHS‑OIG will continue working with our law enforcement partners — and using every tool in our arsenal — to pursue and dismantle illegal black‑market rings that seek to corrupt the nation’s drug supply and exploit taxpayer‑funded health care programs.”
Hellbound and Down 