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TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced a guilty verdict against a former Miami pharmacist for stealing over $1.3 million in prescription drugs from the Florida Medicaid program. Victor O. Osagie, owner of Viko Drug Store in Miami, was charged with fraudulently billing the Medicaid program for prescription drugs never purchased by nor delivered to Medicaid recipients. The case was prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit through the State Attorney’s Office for the 11th Judicial Circuit.

The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit began investigating Osagie, 62, in 1999 after receiving information about suspicious pharmaceutical billings from the Agency for Health Care Administration's Medicaid Program Integrity Unit. During the trial, an audit was introduced in evidence relating to the purchases, inventory and sales of prescription drugs at Viko Drug Store. The audit revealed Osagie was paying recipients to let him keep their prescribed medications, but was billing the Medicaid program for refills that were neither authorized nor delivered to the recipients. He was terminated as a Medicaid provider in November 2000 and his license to practice pharmacology was suspended in September 2002.

Osagie had already been arrested for unrelated charges of trafficking in controlled substances when he was arrested for these charges. He remained free on bond until 2005, when he was arrested in a third case and charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. In 2006, he was tried and convicted in the trafficking case. Osagie is currently serving a 15-year sentence for the prior conviction for trafficking in controlled substances. The case involving the charge of battery on a law enforcement officer is still pending.

Osagie was convicted today on one count of grand theft, a first-degree felony, and one count of Medicaid fraud, a third-degree felony. He faces up to 35 years in prison and a $15,000 fine for the most recent conviction, which will be in addition to his current sentence. The sentencing hearing will be in June 2009.