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Submitted $1,289 in phony claims from Jersey City pharmacy

A North Jersey pharmacist was sentenced Friday to three years in state prison for billing the Medicaid Program for prescriptions he never dispensed.

Kamal Moorjani, 40, of Lyndhurst, a pharmacist at the Amethyst Pharmacy in Jersey City, was sentenced by state Superior Court Judge Kevin G. Callahan in Jersey City, state Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza Dagli said.

Moorjani was ordered to pay $1,289 in restitution to the Medicaid Program and $10,000 to the Jersey City police. Moorjani also agreed to pay a $30,000 civil penalty to Medicaid and forfeit $15,000 of his assets that were seized by authorities.

Moorjani's sentence was based on his June 25 guilty plea to an accusation which charged him with second-degree health care claims fraud. As a result of a plea agreement, Moorjani's pharmaceutical license was suspended in June for a period of three years.

Moorjani admitted that between Jan. 1, 2009 and Jan. 27, he submitted false claims to the Medicaid program for prescription drugs he did not dispense. The claims were subsequently paid by the Medicaid program.

At the time of Moorjani's arrest in January, the Division of Criminal Justice seized assets and property from him including the pharmacy property at 550 Newark Avenue, his residence in Lyndhurst, and several bank accounts.

Friday's sentence stemmed from Operation MedScam, an ongoing investigation by the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Jersey City police Special Investigation Unit. Since October, more than 32 people, including doctors and pharmacists, have been arrested in the investigation, which uncovered a criminal narcotics network based in Hudson County that distributed black market prescription pain pills such as OxyContin and Percocet.

The network was obtaining fraudulent narcotics prescriptions and filling them at various pharmacies. At the same time, Medicaid was being billed for phony doctor visits and prescription medicines that were never dispensed.

The network allegedly distributed the prescription pain pills throughout Hudson and other parts of the state, including Bergen, Ocean, Morris and Monmouth counties.

A single 30 milligram OxyContin pill, known as a "blue," typically sells for $10 to $20 on the street, while a 10 milligram Percocet pill sells for $5 to $8.

— TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM