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Two Essex County pharmacy technicians were sentenced Monday for participating in a scheme in which pharmacy owners and employees allegedly bought completed prescription forms for HIV/AIDS drugs from indigent patients so Medicaid could be billed for drugs that were never actually dispensed.

A third pharmacy technician pleaded guilty to illegal possession of prescription drugs.

Jannah Rasheedah Amatul Muid, 26, of East Orange, and Alicia Stephens, 29, of Newark, were each sentenced to three years of probation by state Superior Court Judge Michael A. Petrolle in Newark, according to state Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza Dagli.

The judge ordered that they be excluded from working for any Medicaid provider for five years. In addition, Muid was ordered to perform 150 hours of community service, and Stephens, 100 hours.

Muid and Stephens each pleaded guilty on Jan. 20 to third-degree Medicaid fraud, a charge contained in an Oct. 26 state grand jury indictment. In pleading guilty, Muid and Stephens, both technicians at Pharmacy of America in East Orange, admitted that between 2006 and 2008, they paid Medicaid beneficiaries for prescriptions and subsequently billed Medicaid for prescription drugs that were never dispensed to the Medicaid beneficiaries.

The third technician at Pharmacy of America, Shivonne Diacy Forde, 27, of Orange, pleaded guilty to an accusation charging her with third-degree unlawful possession of prescription drugs with intent to distribute.

In pleading guilty, Forde admitted that she possessed prescription cough syrup with codeine, without a valid prescription, which she intended to provide to others for distribution on the street. The state will recommend that she be sentenced to three years of probation. She will be excluded from working for any Medicaid provider for five years. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 3.

"Our Medicaid Fraud Control Unit has made it a priority to detect and prosecute dishonest pharmacy operators who view the high cost of many prescription medicines as a golden opportunity to fraudulently bill the Medicaid program," Dagli said. "We have indicted four pharmacists and three pharmacies in this ongoing investigation."

Seven other defendants were indicted along with Muid, Stephens and Forde as a result of the investigation into Pharmacy of America and other pharmacies that were buying prescriptions from patients and billing the Medicaid Program for medicines that were never dispensed.

On Feb. 23, Nwala Gabriel, 49, of Piscataway, pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree Medicaid fraud before Judge Petrolle. In pleading guilty, Gabriel, the owner of Harrison Pharmacy on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark, admitted that he fraudulently billed Medicaid for prescription drugs that were never dispensed to the Medicaid beneficiaries.

The state will recommend that Gabriel be sentenced to three years of probation. The state also reserves the right to recommend that he be sentenced to up to 364 days in the county jail as a condition of probation. Gabriel must pay restitution and a penalty totaling $178,272 and will be excluded from the Medicaid program for three years. He must surrender his pharmacy license for a minimum of three years or until he successfully completes all terms of his criminal sentence.

Deputy Attorney General Sherry Wilson prosecuted the cases. The defendants were charged as a result of Operation PharmScam, an ongoing investigation targeting Medicaid fraud that began in 2008 and has been conducted by the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Jersey City police and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The investigation has been conducted for the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit by Detectives Danielle Han, Joseph Jaruszewski, Jacqueline Latty, and Kevin Gannon, Sgt. Fred Weidman and Sgt. James Wrightson. Wilson and Debra Conrad are leading the prosecutions, with assistance from Deputy Attorney General Erik Daab, deputy chief of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and Deputy Attorneys General William Hoyman, Cynthia Vazquez, Linda Rinaldi and Carol Stanton Meier.

— TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM