Pharmacy Owner Sentenced for Role in $174 Million Scheme

On Dec. 2, 2021 a federal jury in Greeneville, Tennessee, convicted Peter Bolos, 44, of Tampa, Florida, of 22 counts of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and introduction of a misbranded drug into interstate commerce, following a month-long trial.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Bolos and his co-conspirators, Andrew Assad, Michael Palso, Maikel Bolos, Larry Smith, Scott Roix, HealthRight LLC, Mihir Taneja, Arun Kapoor, and Sterling Knight Pharmaceuticals, as well as various other companies owned by them, deceived pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), such as Express Scripts and CVS Caremark, regarding tens of thousands of prescriptions. The PBMs processed and approved claims for prescription drugs on behalf of insurance companies. Bolos and his co-conspirators defrauded the PBMs into authorizing claims worth more than $174 million that private insurers such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, and public insurers such as Medicaid and TRICARE, paid to pharmacies controlled by the co-conspirators.

Court documents and evidence at trial established that Bolos, Assad and Palso owned and operated Synergy Pharmacy in Palm Harbor, Florida. Under their direction, Synergy agreed with Scott Roix, a Florida telemarketer operating under the name HealthRight, to generate prescriptions for Synergy and the other pharmacies involved in the scheme. The prescriptions were typically for drugs such as pain creams, scar creams and vitamins. To obtain the prescriptions, evidence showed Roix used HealthRight’s telemarketing platform as a telemedicine service, calling consumers and deceiving them into agreeing to accept the drugs and to provide their personal insurance information. HealthRight then paid doctors to authorize the prescriptions through its telemedicine platform, even though the doctors never communicated directly with the patients and relied solely on the telemarketers’ screening process as the basis for their authorizations. Because this faulty and fraudulent process made the prescriptions invalid, the drugs were misbranded under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Synergy and the other pharmacies nonetheless dispensed the drugs to consumers as part of the scheme, so that Bolos could submit fraudulent reimbursement claims.

Court documents and evidence at trial established that during the conspiracy, which lasted from May 2015 through April 2018, Bolos paid Roix more than $30 million to buy at least 60,000 invalid prescriptions generated by HealthRight. Evidence showed Bolos selected specific medications for the prescriptions that he could submit for highly profitable reimbursements. In addition, Bolos used illegal means to hide his activity from the PBMs so that he could remain undetected. Evidence showed that Bolos was responsible for at least $89 million out of the total $174 million in fraudulently paid billings.

Roix, Assad, Palso, Smith, Maikel Bolos and various associated business entities previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the conspiracy. Taneja, Kapoor, and Sterling Knight pleaded guilty to felony misbranding in a conspiracy with Bolos. U.S. District Judge J. Ronnie Greer set sentencing for Bolos for May 19, 2022, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Greeneville.

The trial and plea agreements resulted from a multi-year investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General (Nashville); Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations (Nashville); U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General (Buffalo); Federal Bureau of Investigation (Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee); Office of Personnel Management Office of Inspector General (Atlanta); and the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (Tampa). The U.S. Marshals Service also assisted in the investigation and the forfeiture of assets.