CAMDEN – A Monmouth County man was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme that used doctors’ practices to obtain nearly $48 million in expensive prescription medications that were later resold for profit.
Frank Incognito, 46, of Englishtown, was sentenced July 29 by U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton, U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer said.
Incognito previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully resell medications that had been purchased by a health care entity. The drugs included oncology and ophthalmology treatments intended for patients with cancer, macular degeneration and autoimmune diseases.
Federal prosecutors said Incognito worked for several years as an operations manager for a wholesale drug distributor operating as VRC Medical Services and Investigational Drug Delivery in Sewaren.
Incognito and others worked with multiple doctors to order medications through the physicians’ licenses and medical offices, according to court documents. Manufacturers and authorized distributors were told the drugs would be administered to the doctors’ patients and would not be redistributed.
Instead, authorities said the medications were transferred to Incognito and his associates and sold to customers of the wholesale businesses.
The drugs were primarily temperature-sensitive biologic infusion medications that Incognito and his co-conspirators could not have purchased directly, prosecutors said.
Authorities described the transactions as “straw purchases” because the doctors’ practices were used to obtain the medications under false pretenses. None of the drugs involved in the scheme were used to treat patients at those practices, according to prosecutors.
The conspiracy operated from approximately June 2012 through January 2019 and involved more than $47.7 million in prescription medications.
Incognito is the third person sentenced in the case. Doctors Anise Kachadourian and Joel Lerner were also sentenced in connection with the operation.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations and special agents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph McFarlane and Sara Aliabadi prosecuted the case.
