$400M pain cream fraud: Drug rep headed to prison. And his crime will cost him $2.2M

[TexasTowelie]

One of the first men to plead guilty in a $400 million pain cream fraud with roots in Hattiesburg was sentenced Tuesday afternoon at William M. Colmer Federal Courthouse to 27 months in prison.

Gerald "Jay" Schaar, 48, a pharmaceuticals sales rep from Biloxi, also must pay $2.2 million in restitution with Albert Diaz, the Coast doctor who was convicted at trial on 16 related charges.

Schaar testified at Diaz's trial in February 2018, explaining how he asked Diaz to sign numerous recurring prescription forms for patients he had never examined.

The prescriptions were for compounded pain creams and vitamin pills that cost more than $10,000 each. Compounded medicines are meant to be created for individuals, but these were developed to maximize the cost, which was billed to TRICARE and other health benefits providers.

Read more: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/crime/2019/03/27/pain-cream-fraud-mississippi-drug-rep-jay-schaar-gets-27-months-must-repay-2-2-million-tricare/3282160002/

[TexasTowelie]

1. Related article:

Doyle Beach guilty plea: 13 of 13 convicted in $400 million pain cream fraud

Glenn "Doyle" Beach Jr., 46, of Sumrall, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to a two-count criminal information connected with the compounding pharmacy scheme that billed TRICARE and other health benefits providers of $400 million.

He faces up to 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines in addition to restitution of an amount that wasn’t disclosed at his plea hearing.

Beach was an owner/managing partner of Advantage Pharmacy when it was formed in 2008. Advantage was one of the pharmacies searched during a statewide, multi-agency operation on Jan. 21, 2016, that eventually was determined the key place where the fraud operations took place.

The pharmacy since has closed.

The scheme involved mass-produced prescriptions for expensive compounded pain creams and vitamin pills that cost more than $10,000 per prescription. Most of them were determined to be medically unnecessary.

Read more: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/crime/2019/03/26/doyle-beach-pleads-guilty-400-million-fraud-scheme/3161364002/