Law enforcement on Tuesday arrested twin brothers they called kingpins of South Florida’s biggest pill mill network, along with 31 of their top lieutenants in a criminal operation that used kidnapping and gunfire to profit.
Jeffrey and Christopher George collected $40 million in two years peddling 20 million pain pills from their string of four clinics in Broward andPalm Beach counties, federal prosecutors and police said. They made millions more by selling illegal steroids over the Internet and phony time-shares from a boiler room, officials said.
The 33 people were arrested on multiple charges ranging from racketeering to fraud and illegal drug sales.
Also, one of the brothers’ pain clinic physicians was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder for prescribing 210 pain pills to a man who overdosed on them a few hours later. Jeffrey George was charged with second-degree murder in the same case.
Palm Beach State Attorney Michael McAuliffe called the murder charges against Dr. Gerald J. Klein and George a new attack on the illegal trade in prescription narcotic drugs.
“We looked at it not as a tragic accident but as a murder,” McAuliffe said at a news conference in West Palm Beach. “We have sent a clear, unmistakable message … to pill mill operators.”
The Palm Beach Gardens brothers, age 30, made so much money at their pain clinics – American Pain, Executive Pain, Hallandale Pain, East Coast Pain and earlier locations in Fort Lauderdale – that employees toted cash away in garbage bags, federal prosecutors said in the indictments.
The bust was the fourth major assault on South Florida pill mills, although all four of the George clinics were shut down in a March 2010 raid, and all or most of the 32 are out of the pain pill trade. Spearheading all of those efforts are a federal-state-local task force led by the FBI and another based at a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency office in Weston.
The brothers opened the clinics in 2008 after making big money through their illegal steroid business, South Beach Rejuvenation. They staffed the offices with 13 doctors, who saw as many as 500 people a day. Officials said the vast majority of the patients were drug dealers, runners or addicts with no legitimate need for pain drugs.
Among the 13 doctors who were arrested, officials said Dr. Beau Boshers prescribed more than 1 million doses of the painkiller oxycodone over 20 months, Dr. Michael Aruta, 916,000, and Dr. Cynthia Cadet, 876,000. The doctors got paid per patient, and netted as much as $1.8 million a year.
To help justify the pill prescriptions, federal agents said the Georges set up a friend in a Boca Raton MRI company that issued phony test results. The company owned one mobile MRI unit that did business behind a strip club, they said.
The Georges also financed a Boca Raton friend and another person to start small pharmacies that sold pills to some pain clinic patients, agents said. They lined up a drug wholesale company that supplied more than a million narcotic pills to the clinics – even after being warned not to do so by the DEA, agents said.
The brothers and their staff threatened other clinic owners and roughed up a Jacksonville competitor, the indictment said. When they discovered someone trying to steal from them, the brothers kidnapped the man and Jeffrey George fired a bullet next to the man’s head.
Using drug profits, the brothers set up a 100-employee telemarketing operation with an office in Boca Raton called American Marketing and International Marketing that bilked $4.7 million from 3,300 people trying to resell time-share units, the indictment said.
“We view this operation as a giant criminal enterprise,” said Wifredo Ferrer, U.S. attorney for South Florida.
The government has filed court papers to seize an estimated $40 million worth of cash, cars, real estate and other assets from the George group. Agents have seized $13.7 million, including $4.3 million in the Wellington attic of Denice Haggerty, the brothers’ mother.
Agents said they have been investigating the George operation for more than two years and arrested some of the defendants at their homes Tuesday. Others turned themselves in. About a dozen of the 32 made court appearances and pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, with more scheduled for Wednesday.
Attorney Fred Haddad, who represents Christopher George, said he had not seen the charges and declined to comment. In the past, he said the clinics were legitimate businesses giving bona fide prescriptions. George has been in prison on pending charges of illegal gun possession.
Jeffrey George and his attorney could not be contacted for comment. Other defendants could not be located for comment.
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Here are 33 people arrested Tuesday on federal charges of racketeering, fraud and illegal drug distribution as part of the George brothers pain clinic operation:
Jeffrey George, 30 – Owner of East Coast Pain and Hallandale Pain clinics, and South Beach Rejuvenation steroid sales firm. Also charged with murder in the death of a patient.
Christopher P. George, 30 – Owner of South Florida Pain, American Pain and Executive Pain clinics.
Dianna Pavnick George, 27 – Wife of Chris George, owner of Executive Pain.
Denice Haggerty, 58 – Mother of the George brothers, employee at Executive Pain.
Theodore Obermeyer, 30 – Manager of East Coast Pain. Also charged with murder in the death of a patient.
Ethan Baumhoff, 40 – Manager of American Pain.
Derik Nolan, 34 – Security manager of South Florida Pain and American Pain.
Dr. Gerald J. Klein, 77 – Physician employed at East Coast Pain. Also charged with murder in the death of a patient.
Dr. Beau Boshers, 47 – Physician employed at American Pain.
Dr. Michael Aruta, 48 – Physician employed at American Pain.
Dr. Cynthia Cadet, 41 – Physician employed at American Pain.
Dr. Roni Dreszer, 36 – Physician employed at American Pain.
Dr. Jacobo Dreszer, 70 – Physician employed at South Florida Pain and American Pain.
Dr. Patrick Graham, 64 – Physician employed at Executive Pain.
Dr. Robert Meek, 36 – Physician employed at Executive Pain.
Dr. Vernon Atreidis, 46 – Physician employed at Executive Pain.
Dr. Augusto Lizarazo, 70 – Physician employed at Executive Pain.
Dr. Joseph Castronuovo, 72 – Physician employed at Executive Pain.
Dr. Christine Chico-Blume, 59 – Physician employed at East Coast Pain.
Dr. Irwin Beretsky, 76 – Physician employed at Executive Pain.
Dr. Daniel Hauser, 61 – Physician employed at South Beach Rejuvenation.
Christopher Hutson, 31 – Set up by the Georges as owner of Hutson MRI and International Marketing time-share sales firm, former employee at pain clinics and steroid firm.
Gino Marquez, 30 – Set up by the Georges as owner of American Marketing time-share sales firm, former steroid telemarketer.
Andrew Harrington, 31 – Set up by the Georges as owner of Boca Drugs, former employee at pain clinics.
Daryl M. Stewart, 44 – Set up by the Georges as owner of Quick Pharm in Orlando, former employee at pain clinics.
Steven Goodman, 67 – Pharmacist and owner of Medical Arts wholesale drug distributor in St. Petersburg.
Pedro Martinez, 35 – Employee at American Pain.
Michael Renda, 30 – Steroid telemarketer at South Beach Rejuvenation.
Matthew Siss, 25 – Steroid telemarketer at South Beach Rejuvenation.
Jason Leve, 33 – Steroid telemarketer at South Beach Rejuvenation.
Jack Martin, 48 – Steroid telemarketer at South Beach Rejuvenation.
Marc Anthony Naya, 26 – Steroid telemarketer at South Beach Rejuvenation.
Zachary Horsley, 25 – Steroid telemarketer at South Beach Rejuvenation.
All pleaded not guilty Tuesday and Wednesday, except for Christopher George and Dr. Christine Chico-Blume, who have not yet made appearances in federal court.
SOURCES: U.S. Attorney, Palm Beach County State Attorney
or 954-356-4526
