Local Pharmacist Pleads Guilty in Fraud Scheme

A city pharmacist has pleaded guilty for taking part in a plot to defraud the federal Medicaid program in which pharmacy owners and employees bought prescriptions from poor partients, then billed Medicaid despite never filling the prescriptions. 

The state Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced today that 34-year-old Calvin Osei of Sayreville pleaded guilty last Friday, March 9, to third-degree Medicaid fraud. Osei, who was indicted in October 2009, is scheduled to be sentenced May 4. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Osei faces 60 days in jail, three years probation and a $100,000 fine. 
 
In pleading guilty, Osei, who was a licensed pharmacist at Campus Pharmacy, admitted that between May 11, 2006 and Oct. 15, 2008, he knowingly submitted fraudulent claims to the Medicaid program for medications that were not dispensed.
 
Osei's case was part of Operation PharmScam, which targeted six pharmacies and two medical clinics in Jersey City and Newark participating in a multi-million dollar conspiracy to defraud Medicaid. 

During the course of the investigation, 14 people, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and the owner of a medical clinic, were charged. Osei is the last of the defendants to plead guilty.