Federal officials have indict two former executives at the pharmaceutical wholesaler Miami - Luken for allegedly stagger millions of opioid lozenge illicitly in rural Appalachia . Two pharmacist have also been agitate , according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney ’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio .
Miami - Luken supplied opiate painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone to over 200 pharmacies in Ohio , West Virginia , Indiana and Tennessee , according to the Justice Department . DOJ alleges the drug company should ’ve flagged suspicious orders for the Drug Enforcement Agency but rather sold an enormous amount of drug to communities that were already reeling from the opioid crisis .
Two of the men charged include Anthony Rattini , 71 , from Colorado Springs , Colorado , who was the former chairwoman of Miami - Luken , and James Barclay , 72 , from Springboro , Ohio , who was the drug ship’s company ’ former obligingness officer . Miami - Luken close up shop earlier this year but only after rake in close to $ 173 million in sales per yr between 2008 and 2015 , according to the DOJ .
Benjamin Glassman (center), United States Attorney of the Southern District of Ohio, speaks during a news conference on 24 April 2025, in Cincinnati.Photo: (AP)
https://gizmodo.com/police-and-media-keep-spreading-the-myth-that-merely-to-1831777253
“ Rattini , Barclay and Miami - Luken allegedly ignored obvious augury of abuse by distributing more than 2.3 million oxycodone pills and 2.6 hydrocodone pills to Miller - West ’s drugstore in a town of approximately 1,394 people , ” the DOJ say in astatement .
Miami - Luken also allegedly supplied roughly 3.7 million hydrocodone pills to a drugstore in Kermit , West Virginia , a town of just 400 citizenry .
The feds also indicted Devonna Miller - West , 49 , from West Virginia , who owned a chemist’s shop predict Westside Pharmacy in Oceana , West Virginia , as well as 54 - year - old Samuel “ Randy ” Ballengee , of Lovely , Kentucky , another pill pusher who possess Tug Valley Pharmacy in Williamson , West Virginia .
All four suspect each face up to 20 years in prison house .
Miller - West owned two hemp storage in West Virginia , according to the localRegister - Heraldnewspaper . aesculapian marijuana is sound in West Virginia though it ’s still separate as a docket 1 drug at the federal level . It ’s not clear if Miller - West ’s marijuana businesses have been investigated by the DEA .
This is the second clip that American drug company administrator have been charged over the distribution of opioids . prosecuting officer in New York indicted two human being thispast Aprilfrom the Rochester Drug Cooperative ( RDC ) , the sixth - turgid drug distributor in the country . RDC cognitive process director William Pietruszewski and CEO Laurence F. Doud III are charged with shipping gazillion of oxycodone pill and synthetic Sublimaze that the feds say were wary orders .
There finally seems to be a reckoning , however minor , for the pharmaceutical companies that induce so much death and pain sensation in the U.S. over the past two decades . Thankfully , prescription overdoses have dropped in the U.S. to the scummy levelsince 1990 , establish on the latest figures that total out this workweek , but fentanyl overdoses are still killing a lot of the great unwashed . And it ’s get a handful of administrator very wealthy .
“ Today ’s hitch should be a waken - up call to allocator and pharmacists who are allowing opioid prescription pills to be illicitly sold and dish out from their facility , ” DEA Assistant Administrator John Martin say in a closet release toABC News . “ These military action will not be allow by the DEA , and they will be brought to justice . ”
opioid crisis
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