Drug distributor contributed to opioid crisis by ignoring signs of abuse, feds say
A pharmaceutical company that authorities said distributed 3.7 million hydrocodone pills to a pharmacy in a West Virginia town of 400 people is at the center of a federal criminal case related to the opioid crisis.
A federal grand jury in Cincinnati indicted four people, including two former leaders of the pharmaceutical distributor Miami-Luken and two pharmacists, authorities announced last week.
Miami-Luken supplied pharmaceuticals to more than 200 pharmacies in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana and Tennessee. The company and its leaders ignored obvious signs of abuse by distributing millions of pills to small communities, according to the indictment.
The company sent more than 2.3 million oxycodone pills and 2.6 million hydrocodone pills to Westside Pharmacy in Oceana, West Virginia, a town of just 1,394 people, authorities said. The owner, 49-year-old Devonna Miller-West, is charged with conspiring to illegally distribute controlled substances.
Samuel “Randy” Ballengee, 54, the owner of Tug Valley Pharmacy in Williamson, West Virginia, is facing the same charge. Authorities said Miami-Luken sent more than 6 million hydrocodone pills to the business from 2008 through 2014. The pharmacy once received more than 120,000 painkiller pills in a single month, the indictment states.
Miami-Luken also provided 2.2 million pills between 2012 and 2014 to another pharmacy that had been cut off from other wholesalers, authorities said. The business, as well as its former president, 71-year-old Anthony Rattini of Colorado Springs, and its former compliance officer, 72-year-old James Barclay of Springboro, Ohio, are each charged with conspiring to illegally distribute controlled substances.
Authorities said Rattini, Barclay and the company sought to enrich themselves by distributing the painkillers in rural Appalachia, where the opioid crisis was then growing. From 2008 to 2015, the company made more than $173 million in consolidated sales per year, mostly from wholesale distribution.
The company and its leaders ignored “obvious signs of abuse” in the way it distributed the painkillers, authorities said.
The charge carries a sentence of as much as 20 years in prison if they’re convicted.
The Miami-Luken appears to have closed. The company was winding down operations back in January, the Dayton Daily News reported. FOX Business calls to the company Monday went unanswered.
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76 billion opioid pills were sent to pharmacies between 2006 and 2012, court documents in another opioid case revealed last week.