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Hattiesburg Nurse Sentenced to Prison for Mail Fraud in Connection with Compounding Pharmacy Scheme
Hattiesburg, Miss. – Fallon Deneem Page, 37, of Hattiesburg, was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Judge Keitih Starrett to serve 18 months in federal prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for mail fraud in connection with a widespread compounding pharmacy scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst, Special Agent in Charge Michelle Sutphin of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) in Mississippi, and Special Agent in Charge Cyndy Bruce of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s (“DCIS”) Southeast Field Office. Page was also ordered to pay a monetary judgment of $9,500.
In August 2014, Page agreed to be paid $100 per referral of individuals she could locate with health insurance benefits to Medical Solutions of Ocean Springs, a business owned by co-defendant Dr. Shahjahan Sultan. Once referred, Medical Solutions and a pharmacy located in Ocean Springs would determine whether the individual’s health insurance covered the cost of the expensive compounded medications prescribed by Dr. Sultan and dispensed by the pharmacy. If covered, Page and other nurses would perform cursory medical examinations of the insured individuals in public places, such as parking lots or gas stations, and on occasions, Page would falsify some of the patient assessment responses. Dr. Sultan would then prescribe the expensive compounded medications.
On at least one occasion, on October 23, 2014, Page knew that Dr. Sultan had not performed any medical assessment of an individual and merely prescribed the compounded medications and the pharmacy sent the compounded prescription via Federal Express to the individual. For prescribing the high adjudicating compound medication, Dr. Sultan was paid 35% by the pharmacy of what they made per prescription. Page knew that Dr. Sultan had not determined any medical necessity prior to prescribing the expensive compounded medication. In total, the individual’s insurance company paid $34,047.00 to the pharmacy.
On June 16, 2020, Dr. Sultan was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay restitution of $4,102,634.65 to Express Scripts for the Tricare claims, $582,280.79 to CVS Caremark for and $115,611.03 to Catamaran. A money judgment of more than $2.3 million was also ordered.
The case was investigated by the FBI and DCIS. Assistant Chief Dustin M. Davis and Trial Attorney Sara E. Porter of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathlyn R. Van Buskirk of the Southern District of Mississippi prosecuted the case.
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