A federal jury in the Northern District of Texas convicted the owner of several compounding pharmacies today for paying illegal marketing kickbacks involving TRICARE, a federal program that provides health insurance benefits to active duty and retired service members and their families. He was also convicted of a conspiracy to launder the proceeds of the unlawful activity.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Richard Hall, 53, of Fort Worth, Texas, worked with others to create and market expensive compounded medications, which are medications that are intended to be custom-tailored to individual patient needs. Hall and others paid marketers, who recruited area doctors to write prescriptions for these expensive compounded medications, including by creating so-called “investment opportunities” so that doctors who wrote prescriptions to the pharmacy could profit from the pharmacy operations. Hall paid illegal kickbacks to these marketers and engaged in a conspiracy to launder the unlawful proceeds.
The jury convicted Hall of four counts of paying and receiving unlawful kickbacks, and one count of money laundering. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each kickback count, and 10 years in prison on the money laundering count. A sentencing date has not yet been set. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.