The Plano man was sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
PLANO, Texas — A 62-year-old North Texas pharmacist was sentenced to over 17 years in prison and ordered to pay over $115 million in restitution for his role in a $145 million scheme to defraud the Department of Labor, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ said Dehshid “David” Nourian, of Plano, Texas, and others conspired to pay doctors to prescribe medically unnecessary compound creams to injured federal workers, according to court documents and evidence presented at trial.
During sentencing, Nourian was ordered to forfeit $405 million in seized assets tied to his crimes and sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison.
Nourian and others owned and operated three pharmacies located in Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas. Over the course of the scheme, they paid doctors millions of dollars in illegal bribes and kickbacks for referring expensive compound medications to be filled by those pharmacies, the DOJ said.
The feds said evidence at trial showed these compounds were being mixed in the back rooms of the pharmacies by untrained teenagers at a cost to the defendants of around $15 per prescription and then billed to the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs for as much as $16,000 per prescription.
According to the DOJ, patients who received the creams testified at trial to the creams’ ineffectiveness and, in some instances, that using the creams resulted in painful, irritating skin rashes.
Between May 2014 and March 2017, the pharmacies billed the workers’ compensation program and Blue Cross Blue Shield more than $145 million and were paid more than $90 million for the prescriptions, federal officials said in a press release. The DOJ said Nourian and others then attempted to hide their profits by laundering the money through purported holding companies and attempted to evade paying $24 million in federal income taxes on the illegal proceeds.
Nourian was convicted in November 2023 of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, eight counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to launder money, five counts of money laundering, and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States by failing to report and attempting to evade the collection of taxes owed to the IRS.
“Protecting victims and safeguarding the public are two of the Criminal Division’s highest priorities,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “This 17-year sentence sends a clear message that our prosecutors, working shoulder-to-shoulder with our investigative partners, will identify, investigate, and prosecute even the most sophisticated fraud schemes that target taxpayer money and endanger patients.”
The forfeiture order returned that money to the taxpayers and included the forfeiture of $395 million in brokerage accounts, over $2 million in bank accounts, real estate in Dallas and Austin worth $8 million, and a BMW luxury vehicle, according to the DOJ.
