Dallas Pharmacy Owner Sentenced In $41M Healthcare Scam
A Dallas pharmacy owner and Hollywood screenwriter, Ivor Jallah, is turning in his jewels for a jumpsuit after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for running a $41 million healthcare scam, Fox 4 reports.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas claims that Jallah and co-conspirator Shannon Turley submitted nearly $46 million in bogus claims to insurance companies. Prosecutors allege Jallah used the stolen millions to fund his “promising” Hollywood career and lavish lifestyle to match. Court documents show Jallah and Turley operated close to nine Texas pharmacies and would pay “marketers” for the personal information of insured patients.
The 37-year-old was pursuing a career as a screenwriter and director and used the money to purchase land, luxury vehicles, and more. An IMDB page lists him as a screenwriter for the 2019 movie Grand Isle, starring Nicolas Cage.
Jallah’s former neighbor, Fred Moyini, became suspicious when he noticed more high-end vehicles were consistently seen going in and out of his Far North Dallas home. “He was probably doing something bad. Who knows,” Moyini said.
“Outlandish. I can say that. Way outlandish.”
According to The Dallas Morning News, the pair admitted to scamming insurance companies with fake prescriptions for headache sprays and pain and scar creams starting in 2017. As part of the scheme, Turley and Jallah would pay physicians to stamp phony prescription forms when, in reality, they didn’t treat the patients. In other instances, they used physicians’ stamps without consent.
Once the pharmacies shipped out a portion of the medications billed to insurance, Jallah stopped shipping them. When insurance companies started audits to determine whether prescription claims were legitimate, the duo used false drug purchase invoices to support claims submitted to insurance companies.
To take things further, Jallah selected pharmacy employees to create fake prescription delivery logs and instructed the “marketers” to ask patients to sign the logs regardless of whether they received the prescriptions or not. When the marketers didn’t get the patient signatures, Jallah asked pharmacy employees to forge them.
When law enforcement officers discovered the scam, the military’s healthcare system, Tricare, stopped payment for the creams as the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud said each container of cream contained up to 10 different drugs, some as powerful anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants. U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton said healthcare is too much of an issue in the country for people to be taken advantage of. “By billing for prescription medication patients never needed nor received, these defendants brazenly lined their pockets at the expense of each and every client who paid into health insurance,” Simonton said in a statement.
“Healthcare is already a significant expense for many Americans. We cannot and will not allow pharmacy operators to abuse the system in this way.”
U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay ordered Jallah to pay more than $41 million in restitution, and eight defendants pleaded guilty to charges related to the pharmacy scam, receiving a combined sentence of 24 years in prison.
Turley is scheduled to be sentenced in November 2024.
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