Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5817
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Kouri J.
Physician Charged by Feds for Selling Over 2.5 Million Diet Pills
commonvoice.com 2006 Aug 5
http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=5566
Full text:
Physician Charged by Feds for Selling Over 2.5 Million Diet Pills
Jim Kouri
August 5, 2006
Dr. Albert Kofsky was arrested by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation who charged him with trafficking in massive quantities of prescription diet pills, including phentermine, from his small office in Northeast Philadelphia.
Dr. Kofsky was licensed to dispense these drugs only in the course of a legitimate medical practice and is alleged to have made more than $8.7 million from illegal sales. During a five-year period between August 2001 and August 2006, Kofsky is alleged to have acquired over 2,500,000 diet pills from pharmaceutical wholesalers for potential distribution.
“As the indictment alleges, this was a drug trafficking operation masquerading as a legitimate medical practice,” according to government officials.
“This wasn’t about patient care. It was about selling as many pills as possible to customers who were willing to pay cash.”
Over the last decade, to protect and conceal his illegal diet pill sales business, Dr. Kofsky tried to make it appear to government regulators, to his suppliers, and to others that he was dispensing these medicines as part of a legitimate medical practice, when in fact, the indictment charges, Dr. Kofsky sold these diet pills on a first-come, first-served basis, to anyone with the cash to buy them.
He hired his cleaning lady to help with sales and called her his “nurse.” He called his customers “patients” and usually without even going through the process, had those working with him, write down names, weights, and blood pressures of customers on index cards and called them “diet patient records.”
At the time of the indictment, virtually all of Dr. Kofsky’s customers were repeat buyers of diet pills.
To evade currency reporting requirements imposed on banks for large cash transactions, which he believed might raise questions about the true nature of his drug business, every week Dr. Kofsky structured cash deposits into his business account, so that he did not deposit cash in excess of $10,000.
Over the course of the last five years, each year he structured cash deposits of over $500,000. In total over this period he structured about $2.5million in cash and generated from the illegal sales of diet pills in excess of $8.7 million. Dr .Kofsky kept over $1 million in cash in his home.
If convicted the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 1394 years imprisonment, three years to a lifetime of supervised release, a fine of $57 million, and special assessment of $12,800.
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.us
