By Forum Staff
A federal jury in Brooklyn recently returned guilty verdicts against licensed pharmacists Yousef Ennab and Mohamed Hassan on all counts of a superseding indictment charging them with conspiracies to dispense and distribute oxycodone, as well as distribution and possession with intent to distribute oxycodone. The verdict followed a three-week trial before U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly.
As proven at trial, Hassan and Ennab were licensed pharmacists who participated in a large-scale scheme using illegal medical prescriptions to obtain oxycodone for distribution on the streets of of the five boroughs. Hassan held ownership stakes in more than a dozen pharmacies, where were located in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island and did business under the names Nile RX, Nile Ridge, Nile City, Sunset Corner, Prospect Care, Downtown RX and Forest Care, among others. Ennab was the supervising pharmacist at Forest Care, one of Hassan’s pharmacies in Staten Island.
Photo Courtesy of the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of NY
Yousef Ennab
The scheme relied on filling illegally issued prescriptions for 30-day supplies of oxycodone 30 mg that were written out of a Brooklyn medical practice operating as a pill mill, often for patients that the resident doctor at the practice had never examined. Oxycodone 30 pills are high in strength and are prescribed to cancer patients, for instance. In some cases, the prescriptions were for individuals whose identities had been stolen and were not patients of the practice. The prescriptions were then filled at pharmacies controlled by Hassan, including the pharmacy where Ennab worked. Hassan and Ennab conspired with other drug dealers to effect the distribution of the illegally obtained oxycodone. One of the drug dealers picked up the oxycodone from the pharmacies in exchange for cash payments to Hassan and Ennab. Hassan and other pharmacist co-conspirators also billed insurance companies for the pills even though they had no legitimate medical purpose. The trial evidence included video footage of Ennab taking a cash payment from one of the drug dealers, Michael Kent, while handing over multiple prescriptions for oxycodone for sham patients. In total, the scheme resulted in the illegal distribution of more than 1.2 million pills of oxycodone worth more than $36 million in retail street value.
Six co-defendants, including Dr. Somsri Ratanaprasatporn, her receptionist Leticia Smith and pharmacists Bassam Amin and Omar Elsayed, previously pleaded guilty based on their involvement in the scheme and are awaiting sentencing. A seventh co-defendant, Michael Kent, previously pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years’ incarceration.
When sentenced, the defendants each face up to 60 years in prison.
