Owner of Florida and Ohio Pain Clinics Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering
| U.S. Attorney’s Office November 30, 2012 |
COVINGTON, KY—A man who owned two pain clinics in Florida and Ohio admitted he laundered money he received from his clinics that illegally dispensed prescription drugs to eastern Kentuckians.
Jody L. Robinson, 38, from Portsmouth, Ohio, pleaded guilty late Thursday afternoon to conspiracy to launder money in federal court in Covington. A co-defendant, William Muldoon, 34, of Margate, Florida, also pleaded guilty to a money laundering conspiracy charge. Robinson hired Muldoon to advertise the clinics.
Robinson acknowledged that from July 2008 until September 2009, he made more than $400,000 using a doctor to unlawfully write prescriptions to patients from Lawrence, Boyd, and Greenup Counties in Kentucky. Patients from West Virginia, Ohio, and Tennessee also obtained prescriptions from the clinics. The patients paid between $150 and $160 in cash for a prescription that consisted mostly of oxycodone. The prescriptions were typically filled for $300 at the clinics’ in-house pharmacies.
According to his plea agreement, Robinson opened a pain clinic in Ohio because it was more convenient for patients and because of the pressure he felt from Florida media reports on rogue pain clinics that service out-of-state patients.
Robinson, who previously worked in the automotive industry, admitted that he opened a pain clinic known as Florida Global Medical in July 2008 because he had heard about the profit potential.
Muldoon admitted he was paid at least $30,000 to build a website for the Florida clinic, develop medical software, and create flyers to advertise the clinics’ services.
Kerry B. Harvey, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Perrye Turner, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Rodney Brewer, Kentucky State Police Commissioner, jointly announced the guilty pleas.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI and KSP. Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger West represented the U.S. Attorney’s Office in this case.
Robinson and Muldoon will appear for sentencing on March 11, 2013. Each defendant faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. However, the court must consider the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statutes before imposing a sentence.