Feds: Tampa pharmacy led U.S. in dispensing painkiller

During the first three months of last year, a Tampa pharmacy dispensed more oxycodone than any other retail pharmacy in the nation, federal investigators say.

VIP Pharmacy dispensed 760,800 doses of the addictive pain pill - more than 27 times the amount of oxycodone sold by the average retail pharmacy in Florida and more than 49 times the national average, Drug Enforcement Administration statistics show.

Witnesses reported seeing wads of cash bundled with rubber bands and kept in shoe boxes, and technicians fabricating prescriptions and faking patient profiles, according to court documents. The pharmacy on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard charged a premium, up to three times the normal price at other drug stores, when the oxycodone prescriptions were forged and post-dated.

One witness saw pharmacy owner Christopher Switlyk counting cash in the back of the store with the help of three strippers, according to recently unsealed search warrant affidavits, which also describe Switlyk laundering cash from the business through a local casino.

At the same time, pain clinics associated with the pharmacy were seeing scores of patients every day, many from out of state, investigators say. An informant reported seeing a U-Haul box truck pulling up to a clinic and disgorging a group of people from Ohio.

Switlyk, a licensed pharmacist, was indicted on drug and money laundering charges in November, along with pharmacy employee Marco Beltran, who authorities say also operated two pain management clinics linked to VIP - Tampa Bay Wellness Centre on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Superior Injury Center on Hillsborough Avenue.

Two other clinic operators, Louis Fernandez Jr. and his son Louis Fernandez III, were also indicted, along with another VIP employee, Kimberly Curtiss.

All five defendants have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. Their lawyers either declined comment or couldn't be reached.

The case is the biggest of its kind ever in the Tampa area, said James F. DiCaprio, who heads the Tampa DEA office.

"I would say this one is unique in the size," DiCaprio said. "People were coming from all over" to get prescriptions.

The abuse of oxycodone and other potent, addictive prescription drugs has alarmed authorities statewide. During the first six months of 2010, oxycodone caused more overdose deaths in Florida than any other drug - 715 - with 67 of those deaths in Hillsborough County, according to a report from the state medical examiner's office.

DiCaprio said investigators don't know whether any deaths or overdoses can be attributed to drugs dispensed at VIP or prescribed at Tampa Bay Wellness Centre or Superior Injury Center.

Tampa Bay Wellness saw an estimated 125 to 150 patients a day and Superior Injury saw from 75 to 110 people a day, DiCaprio said. "There could have been anywhere from 30 to 50 people inside the office at one time."

Patients waited hours and even days to see a doctor, who often saw them in groups to speed things along and provided prescriptions for large quantities of pain medications without required physical examinations, documents show.

The clinics used armed security to keep patients in line. Neighbors complained to police about drug deals happening in the parking lot, the DEA alleges. In a recorded conversation, a clinic owner referred to patients as "crack heads."

"They were trying to make as much money as they could as fast as they could and they didn't really care about anything along the way," DiCaprio said. "They didn't realize the attention it was going to cause and the problems it was going to cause."

Beltran, who served time in state prison for fraud, made large purchases with cash, including his house, car and a business, according to court records. He told a witness he kept $150,000 in a floor safe in his master bedroom closet and had a home surveillance system with up to eight cameras.

Security and possible interference from law enforcement seemed to be overriding concerns.

Switlyk had security cameras at his townhouse, where he could also monitor security cameras inside the pharmacy, investigators say.

One witness said Switlyk bought a radio frequency detector, which he kept in the pharmacy to monitor whether law enforcement was conducting undercover operations.

Agents also were told Switlyk staged a burglary at the pharmacy, enlisting the burglar and even leaving rubber gloves outside for the burglar to use. When it was time, Switlyk sent the burglar a text message saying, "Hit the lick," according to the DEA, and later reported that more drugs had been stolen than actually were.

The DEA alleges Switlyk tried to extort money from a pharmacy technician he caught stealing oxycodone, demanding $10,000 not to report the theft. After giving Switlyk $2,500, the technician went to DEA agents, who confirmed the story by having the technician exchange texts with Switlyk.

According to DEA affidavits, the investigation began in April 2009 when agents learned the Fernandezes and another man, who has not been arrested, were operating Perez Personal Injury and Superior Injury Center. Agents learned they also were linked to two additional pain clinics, Tampa Bay Wellness Centre and Tampa Bay Medical Center.

All three men had been involved as far back as 2005 with Internet-based pharmacies that had drawn attention from federal authorities - Tampa Community Care Pharmacy, Land O' Lakes Pharmacy and Lexus Drugs, the affidavits state.

Investigators say those pharmacies relinquished their DEA registration, which gave them authority to dispense regulated drugs, when confronted by authorities about their "illicit conduct," including filling orders for large quantities of controlled substances without medical necessity.

Louis Fernandez III had previous legal troubles.

In 2002, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ecstasy.

According to his plea agreement, Fernandez was arrested at a Tampa hotel after trying to buy 7,500 ecstasy pills. He had purchased thousands of pills from the same suppliers at least eight times before.

After receiving credit for extensive cooperation with law enforcement, Fernandez served 41 months in federal prison in the ecstasy case.

In May, the city of Tampa enacted an ordinance requiring pain clinics to obtain permits from the city and register with the state.

That same month, federal agents shut down VIP Pharmacy and Tampa Bay Wellness Centre. In November, they shuttered Superior Injury Center.

As agents prepared to search Superior Injury, Beltran was seen leaving his townhouse and putting a large blue bag in his car, records show. Police pulled him over for having a suspended license.

A search of the car turned up marijuana, drug paraphernalia, methadone, cocaine and large quantities of oxycodone and hydrocodone, the DEA said. Beltran was carrying $9,059 in cash.

To date, no doctor has been charged in the DEA's probe into the Tampa pharmacy and clinics, but DiCaprio said, "There will be other investigations as a result of this one."