A man who operated a now-closed sham medical clinic in Los Angeles that charged addicts up to $500 for painkiller prescriptions was sentenced Thursday to six years behind bars.
Jagehauel Gillespie, 40, was also fined $10,000 and ordered to serve three years under supervised release following his federal prison term, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Barron.
Gillespie pleaded guilty in July to a charge of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone — best known by the brand names OxyContin and Percocet.
The defendant and four others, including an ex-doctor who worked at the clinic, were charged in a grand jury indictment in January with narcotics trafficking and selling prescriptions for potent and addictive painkillers, anti-anxiety medication and cough syrup popular among addicts.
More than 10,000 prescriptions were issued by the former doctor, Madhu Garg, at Southfork Medical Clinic on South Western Avenue over a 15-month period tracked by investigators, authorities allege.
Most of the prescriptions were for hydrocodone — commonly known by brand names Vicodin, Norco and Lortab — or alprazolam, best known as Xanax, mostly at their maximum dosage, according to prosecutors.
Garg, 64, of Glendora, had her medical license revoked in late 2013 by the state medical board, which accused her of being a controlled substances abuser. She is scheduled to face trial in January in Los Angeles federal court.
The conspirators used Los Angeles as a base of operations to acquire and deliver bulk shipments of prescription drugs to Texas, according to the indictment.
An investigation resulted in the seizure of multiple drug loads, including a January 2013 seizure of nearly 10,000 pills from Gillespie’s home, and a July 2010 seizure of 48 bottles of promethazine with codeine from a car being driven across Texas by Gillespie and another defendant, according to prosecutors.
—City News Service