Staff Report
Published Aug. 13, 2012

Easley-based Altec Medical will pay a $2 million fine and forfeit an additional $1 million after pleading guilty to purchasing and distributing pharmaceuticals from a gray-market supplier, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.

A judge also ordered Altec to one year of probation for conspiring to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department said.

Representatives from Altec could not be reached for comment.

Federal prosecutors charged Altec with paying $55 million from 2007 to 2009 to William D. Rodriguez for prescription drugs that had been illegally diverted from drug-distribution channels regulated by the FDA.

The U.S. government charged that Altec and Rodriguez then falsified business records and “drug pedigrees” to claim the pharmaceuticals were legal. Eventually, the diverted drugs were bought by retail pharmacies, which dispensed the drugs by filling prescriptions for individual consumers, the Justice Department said.

Rodriguez pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy and money laundering in a separate case charging him with, among other things, his role in this drug diversion scheme, according to the Justice Department. He has not been sentenced.

Altec Medical pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Miami.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon M. Juenger of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and David A. Frank of the Justice Department’s Consumer Protection Branch.