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Seminole Physician Charged In Fake Prescription Scheme

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 21, 2008

Updated: 11/21/2008 04:36 pm

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• Read The Affidavit

Michael Spuza

TAMPA - A Pinellas County physician has been charged with illegally selling drugs he obtained by writing prescriptions in his patients' names without their knowledge.

Michael Peter Spuza, 50, of Seminole, faces a federal charge of possession of controlled, dangerous substances with the intent to distribute, according to court records.

This is Spuza's second run-in with federal law enforcement authorities. He was convicted in 2000 of accepting kickbacks in connection with Medicare and conspiracy to defraud the federal government. He was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. That conviction was upheld in 2006.

Also, according to the Florida Department of Health Web site, Spuza was fined and reprimanded in 1996. Spuza agreed to pay a $1,000 fine after being accused of lying on an application for privileges at Largo Medical Center in 1994, according to state records. He did not admit wrongdoing.

His medical license was listed as clear and active. According to state records, officials revoked his license upon learning of the 2000 federal conviction, but a state appeals court reinstated the license and ordered health officials to conduct a formal hearing because Spuza was disputing the facts. The action is on hold to allow Spuza to exhaust his federal appeals.

Most recently, Spuza was arrested after an investigation that started when an informant who was renting office space to Spuza approached the FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, according to a federal complaint.

The informant reported that Spuza was having trouble paying his rent and also owed the informant $150,000 for office furniture. The two entered into an agreement in which Spuza would give him fraudulent prescriptions for the painkiller oxycodone, and the informant would fill the prescriptions and give Spuza the drugs to sell on the street.

According to the affidavit:

Spuza told the informant when he wrote prescriptions for patients, he would write duplicate prescriptions for oxycodone, which he gave to the informant.

After several months of this arrangement, Spuza still wasn't paying his rent, so the informant sent him an eviction notice. Spuza met with the informant and agreed to additionally write prescriptions for another pain drug, Actiq. Those prescriptions would not be filled but would be used to file fraudulent insurance claims.

The informant told investigators that he or she made $30,000 a month through the insurance claims, $3,000 of which was used to cover the cost of drugs provided to Spuza and $10,000 used to cover Spuza's rent. The remaining $17,000 was profit for the informant.

After the informant approached investigators, the informant engaged in drug transactions with Spuza that were monitored by law enforcement, and Spuza was arrested.

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