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Arnold Berkowitz, 62, of the 600 block of Parlin Street, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Bucks County Court to felony drug and conspiracy counts, as well as misdemeanor charges of fraud and identity theft, according to court records.
He agreed to forfeit to authorities $1.2 million seized by police in August, a court order filed Tuesday shows. The funds include $158,242 cash in addition to money kept in various frozen bank accounts.
Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. ordered the man’s sentencing deferred for 45 days for mitigation. While he awaits sentencing, Berkowitz is prohibited from both practicing medicine and leaving the state.
Court papers show Berkowitz is to be screened for house arrest and work release.
According to a criminal complaint, Berkowitz between January 2014 and August 2016 sold the weight-loss drug phentermine to patients out of his clinic “Shape and Weight.”
To stock his operation, Berkowitz wrote phony prescriptions using the identities of unwitting patients and filled them at various pharmacies, including several in Bucks County.
He also hired a woman to run the clinic while he was in California for about five months in late 2015 and early 2016, the complaint says. Berkowitz hired the woman, who was twice his patient, to see patients, write prescriptions and sell drugs in his absence. The woman is not and was not a registered nurse, though he posted an announcement on his clinic’s website saying she was.
According to the complaint, the Montgomery County woman was paid 15 percent of the clinic’s pre-tax income. The woman allegedly told investigators, however, that she believed Berkowitz did not report the clinic’s earnings to the federal government.
The alleged co-conspirator is not currently charged with a crime in the case.
The complaint says further that the duo occasionally employed drug users to fill prescriptions, offering them a cut of the pills they picked up as compensation. Berkowitz accepted the food assistance benefits from at least one patient’s Pennsylvania Access benefits card as payment for drugs he provided to her.
In the complaint, Berkowitz and the woman also allegedly sold oxycodone; however, charges related to the sale of the drug were dropped Tuesday, according to court records.
Bucks County detectives caught on to Berkowitz’s scheme when a county woman, arrested on a bench warrant for failing to appear at a court proceeding, offered information about the clinic to investigators, the complaint says.
According to a petition filed in November, Berkowitz is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School who specializes in radiology in cancer treatment. He ran the diet clinic as a “sideline,” authorities alleged.