Pharmacist Kian Gohari Convicted In Manhattan Federal Court For Conspiring To Distribute Oxycodone And Conspiring To Commit Healthcare Fraud

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that pharmacist KIAN GOHARI was convicted yesterday of narcotics and healthcare fraud charges for his role in a conspiracy to distribute medically unnecessary oxycodone pills and fraudulently bill Medicaid for those oxycodone pills.  The jury convicted GOHARI following an eight-day trial before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “A unanimous jury found that Kian Gohari had turned his Brooklyn pharmacy into an illegal oxycodone distribution mill, unlawfully diverting tens of thousands of oxycodone pills for resale.  This Office and our law enforcement partners are committed to stemming the illegal flow of oxycodone, a primary driver of opiate abuse in our country.”

According to court papers and evidence admitted at trial:

From 2012 to 2015, KIAN GOHARI, who owned Ekwunife Pharmacy in Brooklyn, New York, distributed over 25,000 medically unnecessary oxycodone pills and fraudulently billed the majority of those pills to Medicaid.  GOHARI had an agreement with a co-conspirator, whereby GOHARI would distribute the oxycodone pills only if the co-conspirator brought GOHARI prescriptions for high-end medications – many of which were also medically unnecessary – such as HIV medications, psychiatric medications, and expensive pain gels.  GOHARI then billed Medicaid for those prescriptions for hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The co-conspirator subsequently sold the oxycodone pills in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

For these activities, GOHARI was convicted of one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.  GOHARI faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.  GOHARI is scheduled to be sentenced on March 9, 2016, before Judge Rakoff.  The maximum potential sentence in this case is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge. 

U.S. Attorney Bharara praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York Health Care Fraud Task Force, which includes investigators from the FBI, the NYPD, and other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Narcotics Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jordan Estes, Jason A. Richman, and Edward Diskant are in charge of the prosecution.