A Northeast Philadelphia pharmacy owner has been sentenced to 3-and-a-half years in prison and will need to pay over $4 million for filling false oxycodone prescriptions and filing bogus insurance claims.
Mitchell Spivack, 63, was also sentenced to two years of supervised release after federal prosecutors found he and his coconspirators – operating out of Spivack’s Verree Pharmacy in Fox Chase – routinely filled oxycodone prescriptions that were obviously bogus.
Verree developed a reputation as a “no questions asked” pharmacy for oxycodone and other opioids, with Spivack and others filling prescriptions for “wholesale quantities of high-dose oxycodone despite obvious alterations to the prescriptions and other red flags indicating that the drugs were not for a legitimate medical purpose,” the U.S. Department of Justice said.
By 2016, Verree had become the largest purchaser of oxycodone among retail pharmacies in all of Pennsylvania.
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“Mitchell Spivack filled prescriptions outside of medical standards for the highly addictive drug oxycodone, adding fuel to the fire of a crisis that kills 14 Pennsylvanians every day,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a written statement.
In addition, Spivack and other employees billed Medicare and other insurance providers for drugs that weren’t dispensed, raking in more than $450,000 for the bogus claims, according to the DOJ.
Spivack was ordered by a judge in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to pay more than $450,000 in restitution and to forfeit $116,000. In August, the DOJ said, Spivack and Spivack, Inc. – previously Verree Pharmacy – agreed to pay more than $4.1 million to settle civil litigation from the U.S. government. The agreement bans both from ever dispensing controlled substances in the future.
