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A 40-year-old nurse practitioner has been sentenced to prison for her part in helping run two separate “pill mills” in Montgomery.
Lilian Ifeoma Akwuba was convicted in October on 17 counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances, four counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiring to distribute controlled substances and one count of conspiring to commit health care fraud. A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced Akwuba to 10 years in prison, according to a joint announcement by Middle District U.S. Attorney Attorney Louis V. Franklin, Sr., DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge Clay Morris, Derrick L. Jackson, Special Agent in Charge with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, and Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Holloman with the IRS Criminal Investigation, Atlanta Field Office.
Akwuba worked at Family Practice in Montgomery under owner Dr. Gilberto Sanchez. Sanchez in August 2018 was sentenced to 12 years and one month in federal prison after being found guilty of prescribing unnecessary controlled substances for his patients, prosecutors said. The 56-year-old physician was also guilty of committing health care fraud and laundering money. About a dozen people have now pleaded guilty to various charges involving Sanchez’s practice.
Trial evidence showed that from 2013 through 2016, Akwuba, working under Sanchez, issued and caused to be issued unnecessary and illegitimate prescriptions for a variety of controlled substances, including fentanyl, hydrocodone, oxycodone, alprazolam, and methadone. Akwuba and Sanchez also required the patients to return approximately every month to obtain their prescriptions. These unnecessary office visits and unlawful prescriptions were ultimately billed to the insurance companies, which paid the claims, authorities said.
In 2016, Akwuba left Family Practice and opened her own practice, Mercy Family Health Care, also in Montgomery. At her new practice, Akwuba continued the prescribing patterns she developed while working at Family Practice. Because Akwuba was a nurse practitioner and not a physician, she was not able to issue prescription refills on Schedule II controlled substances without a physician’s approval. Akwuba skirted this rule by, in many instances, forging physicians’ signatures on prescriptions for controlled substances, prosecutors said.
At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, the federal judge found that Akwuba testified falsely at trial. As a result, Akwuba received a sentencing enhancement for obstructing justice. Additionally, Akwuba received an enhancement for abusing the trust society placed in her when it allowed her to practice nursing. Before imposing sentence, the judge described Akwuba as a “highly educated drug dealer” and also noted that Akwuba had demonstrated no remorse for the immeasurable harm caused by the prescriptions she signed.
“Far too many of us have been touched by this crisis of over-medication,” Franklin said in a prepared statement. “It is a problem that we hear about on the news and deal with in our own homes.”
“My office and our law enforcement partners are making progress in addressing the issue. Due to the position she held as a medical professional and the air of legitimacy that it comes with, I consider Ms. Akwuba’s actions to be, in many ways, worse than a street-level drug dealer,” he said. “I hope that the sentence imposed in this case will deter other prescribers from following in her footsteps and causing harm to their patients.”
Morris said the effectively ended Akwuba’s illegal distribution of drugs. “Anyone who preys on the addiction of others will bear the full force of the DEA and our law enforcement partners. We will not tolerate those who unlawfully distribute drugs regardless of their position in life,’’ he said. “Healthcare professionals who violate our trust and cause harm to our communities will be held accountable for their criminal activities. The safety of the citizens of Alabama and the United States is our most important priority.”
The case was investigated Drug Enforcement Administration, Health and Human Services-Office of the Inspector General, and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the Opelika, Alabama Police Department, the Montgomery, Alabama Police Department, and the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners all assisted in the investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Jonathan S. Ross, Megan A. Kirkpatrick, and Rand Neeley prosecuted the case.