A Camilla Georgia pharmacist was sentenced to prison and $2.8 million dollars in restitution for health care fraud.

Michael J. Moore, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, has announced that J. Harris Morgan, Jr. was sentenced December 15, 2010 to a term of two and a half years in prison by the Honorable W. Louis Sands, Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Morgan’s prison sentence will be followed by a period of three years on supervised release, and he was further ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $2,804,462.  Morgan, age 64, of Camilla, Georgia, was convicted on October 23, 2008, of sixty-nine counts of health care fraud, following a two-week jury trial in Albany.

The indictment charged that for a period of several years ending in August 2007, Morgan, a registered pharmacist and the owner of Thrift Center Pharmacy in Camilla, Georgia, knowingly and wilfully executed a scheme to defraud the Georgia Medicaid program, which is jointly funded with state and federal funds.  Morgan executed the scheme by submitting false and fraudulent claims for Synagis and other drugs.

Synagis is a drug used to prevent RSV, a serious respiratory disease in premature infants and other high-risk children.  The claims were false in that Morgan billed Medicaid for more Synagis than had actually been administered to the patient, and Morgan billed Medicaid when no Synagis at all had been administered.

Morgan further instructed his staff to use a false diagnosis which had not been given by the physician, in order to obtain approval from the Medicaid program to dispense Synagis to patients who would not have qualified to receive it.

Moore remarked that "Mr. Morgan took $2.8 million dollars of the taxpayers’ money by defrauding a public health care program specifically designed to provide medical care to those who cannot afford it.  Such crimes are reprehensible and should be punished severely.  The United States Attorney’s Office is dedicated to the mission of prosecuting those who commit health care fraud."

The investigation was conducted by the State of Georgia Health Care Fraud Control Unit and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.  Assistant United States Attorney K. Alan Dasher and Special Assistant United States Attorney Nancy B. Allstrom prosecuted the case.