Former Floyd Pharmacist Sentenced for Structuring

Roanoke, VIRGINIA – A former Floyd pharmacist, who structured cash deposits to avoid Internal Revenue Reporting Requirements, was sentenced today in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

Venkata Subrahmanya Ashok Raju Pinnamaraju, 40, of Roanoke, was sentenced today to 18 months incarceration to be followed followed by 1 year of supervised release. Pinnamaraju was also ordered to pay a fine of $200,000, which has been paid. Previously, Pinnamaraju waived his right to be indicted and pled guilty to a one count Information charging him with structuring financial transactions to avoid reporting requirements.

According to information presented at previous hearings by Assistant United States Attorney Jennie L. M. Waering, Pinnamaraju was the part owner and the managing pharmacist of a Floyd Pharmacy, retail pharmacy in the Town of Floyd, Virginia. As the managing pharmacist, the defendant was in charge of ordering and dispensing prescription medication, supervising pharmacy employees, billing insurance providers and overseeing the pharmacy’s finances and accounting.

In the normal course of business, Floyd Pharmacy collected large amounts of United States currency from its customers. However, instead of making a single deposit of the cash accumulated over a period of several days, the defendant made a series of smaller case deposits to avoid the currency transaction reporting requirement. Pinnamaraju conducted at least a dozen structuring deposits between 2011 and 2016, depositing cash totaling approximately $170,000.

The investigation of the case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s Medicaid Fraud Investigation Unit and the United States Health and Human Service – Office of the Inspector General. Assistant United States Attorney Jennie L. M. Waering prosecuted the case for the United States.