Former Army Pharmacy Specialist Pleads Guilty To Stealing Drugs From Walter Reed Hospital

Greenbelt, Maryland – Lamelle Marquez Malone, age 35, of Las Vegas, Nevada, formerly of Columbia, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to steal prescription drugs from a military hospital and to interstate transportation of stolen property.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Robert Craig of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service - Mid‑Atlantic Field Office; and Special Agent in Charge Antoinette V. Henry of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations.

Malone admitted that from April 8, 2011 through August 2012, he conspired with Roger Gurdon, and others to steal Somatropin, a form of human growth hormone, from the pharmacy located at the former Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.  Malone and his co-conspirators re-sold the stolen pharmaceuticals for profit.

Gurdon was a pharmacy technician at Walter Reed.  Between January 2008 and the fall of 2011, Gurdon stole Somatropin from Walter Reed and sold it to a co-conspirator. When Gurdon traveled out of the country in April 2011, he arranged for the co-conspirator to obtain Somatropin from Malone, who was an enlisted member of the Army and worked as a pharmacy specialist at Walter Reed.  Malone distributed stolen Somatropin to the co-conspirator from April until August 2011, when Walter Reed was closed. Malone paid a pharmacy technician at Walter Reed to order the Somatropin which Malone stole, and paid the non-commissioned officer who was in charge of the pharmacy to ignore the fact that Malone was stealing Somatropin. Malone transported the stolen Somatropin from Walter Reed to his home in Columbia, and to College Park, Maryland to distribute the Somatropin to the co-conspirator.

During the period that Malone was involved in the conspiracy, the government contends that he and his co-conspirators stole over $2 million worth of Somatropin from the Walter Reed pharmacy.  Gurdon admitted that the total loss to the United States over the course of the entire conspiracy was at least $4,467,000.

U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm has scheduled sentencing for Malone on November 24, 2015 at 9:30 a.m.

Roger Gurdon, age 43, of Waldorf, Maryland, pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy and was sentenced to 78 months in prison, and was ordered to pay restitution of $4,467,000.  Another conspirator, Issa Wasco Koroma, age 63, of Springdale, Maryland was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiring to steal prescription drugs from two federal military hospitals.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the DCIS and FDA-OCI for their work in the investigation.  Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant United States Attorney Mara Zusman Greenberg, who is prosecuting the case.