Mississippi Woman Pleads Guilty to Health Care Fraud, Money Laundering and Tax Evasion Charges for R

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https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/mississippi-woman-pleads-guilty-health-care-fraud-money-laundering-and-tax-evasion-charges

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Mississippi Woman Pleads Guilty to Health Care Fraud, Money Laundering and Tax Evasion Charges for Role in $200 Million Compounding Pharmacy Scheme

A Hattiesburg, Mississippi woman pleaded guilty today for her role in a $200 million scheme to defraud health care benefit programs, including TRICARE, which is the program that covers U.S. military service members and their families.
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Hope E. Thomley, 52, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett of the Southern District of Mississippi to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and tax evasion. She is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Starrett on July 2. Thomley was charged in May 2018 in a 26-count indictment and had been scheduled to begin trial on March 19.
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At her plea hearing today, Thomley admitted her role in a scheme to defraud health care benefit programs, including TRICARE, by marketing medications known as compounded medications, which ordinarily are medications that are specially combined or formulated to meet the individual needs of patients. Thomley owned and operated the exclusive marketing agency for Advantage Pharmacy of Hattiesburg, and in that role, was responsible for obtaining prescriptions for which the pharmacy could obtain reimbursement from health care benefit programs. Thomley’s marketing company received nearly 50 percent of the reimbursements that Advantage Pharmacy obtained from the compounded medications. Thomley admitted that co-conspirators formulated Advantage Pharmacy’s compounded medications without regard to the individual needs of the patients, but instead with the goal of increasing reimbursements paid by health care benefit programs, and that she had contemporaneous knowledge of this. In order to further increase her profit, Thomley admittedly obtained prescribers’ signatures on blank prescription forms, and then filled out those forms with the names of her children and TRICARE beneficiaries that she and her husband recruited from the community to receive these medications. Thomley knew that Advantage Pharmacy would fill and submit claims for those falsified prescriptions to health care benefit programs, including TRICARE, she admitted.

Thomley also admitted her role in a money laundering and tax evasion scheme that she and other co-conspirators used to conceal the fraudulent proceeds and evade taxes. Through the scheme, Thomley evaded paying approximately $6.6 million in income taxes, she admitted. From approximately April 2012 through January 2016, health care benefit programs, including TRICARE, reimbursed Advantage Pharmacy and other pharmacies involved in the scheme at least $200 million. The government seized more than $15 million in cash and other assets from Thomley, which will be forfeited in connection with her guilty plea.