Federal Jury Convicts the “Compound King”
A federal jury has convicted George Phillip Tompkins, a Houston area pharmacist, on charges of conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering as well as 11 counts of health care fraud and three counts of wire fraud. Prosecutors had dubbed Tompkins as the “Compound King.”
According to evidence presented at trial, Tompkins and others billed the federal government approximately $21.8 million for medically unnecessary compound gels and creams that were predicated on illegal kickback payments. The jury heard that Tompkins and Anoop Chaturvedi, 48, a legal permanent resident from India, created a scheme to generate compounded pain cream prescriptions and bill health care programs for injured state and federal employees. As part of the scheme, Tompkins and Chaturvedi created a separate entity – Wellington Advisors – to receive the program money from the Department of Labor (DOL) – Office of Workers Compensation Programs and Federal Employees Compensation Act.
Evidence introduced at trial showed that Tompkins sought to disguise illicit kickback payments as legitimate “marketing” expenses and continued to ship patients compound gels and creams even after patients repeatedly complained they did not want them.
Tompkins and his wife, Marene Kathryn Tompkins, were arrested and taken into custody two years ago. The Tompkins owned Piney Point Pharmacy on Fondren Road in Houston. The government charged that they had conspired with Chaturvedi and others to induce the referral of compound gel and cream prescriptions to the pharmacy for dispensing and billing under health benefit programs, including the Federal Employees Compensation Act program (FECA).
Beginning around September 2009 and continuing through approximately September 2016, the indictment alleged that the trio had engaged in health care fraud and wire fraud as well as illegal kickbacks. The pharmacy allegedly billed the DOL – who administered the FECA program – at least $23,392,281 for compound gel and cream medications dispensed pursuant to illegitimate prescriptions and the result of kickback payments. The DOL paid approximately $11,663,704 on the fraudulent claims. The indictment lists several dates when compound gels and creams were dispensed to hundreds of patients, ordered by the same physician. Chaturvedi allegedly distributed a standardized prescription order form and directed the number of mediation refills to be ordered.
The indictment described compounding as a practice of compounding and creating medications tailored to individual patient needs. George Tompkins was the pharmacist in charge and allegedly referred to himself as the “Compound King.” Marene Tompkins was identified as the pharmacy Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer, while Chaturvedi owned several other businesses in the Houston area, according to the charges.
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