Alabama doc sentenced to serve 30 years for 'pill mill' operation, feds say

An Alabama doctor was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his involvement in running a "pill mill" out of a Birmingham medical clinic, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Friday. 

U.S. District Court Judge R. David Proctor sentenced Tuesday Patrick Emeka Ifediba, 61, for his involvement with Care Complete Medical Clinic. Investigators say he and co-conspirators Ngozi Justina Ozuligbo, 50, and Clement Essien Ebio, 63, also committed healthcare fraud and money laundering.

According to the DOJ, Ifediba was a doctor of internal medicine who owned and operated CCMC. Prosecutors alleged he and others, including his wife, operated CCMC as a "pill mill" and "illegally, repeatedly prescribed opioids there, often in combination with other controlled substances to form potent and deadly drug cocktails."

He was convicted in July 2019.

RELATED: Georgia 'pill mill' doc hit with 20-year prison sentence 

“Physicians who choose to deal drugs while hiding behind their white coats are no different than drug dealers who hide in alleys,” U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona said in a statement. “The greed of Dr. Ifediba contributed to the ongoing opioid crisis that is plaguing our communities. And to add insult to injury, Dr. Ifediba used our financial system to disguise the proceeds of his crimes and launder them into financial accounts and real property. Each day, more law-enforcement resources are being deployed to address health care fraud. These resources will result in more doctors, nurses, and business people in the health care sector being held accountable for their actions.”

The DOJ said Ifediba and his co-conspirators also stole millions of dollars from Medicare and private health insurers in connection with an allergy fraud scheme that billed insurers for medically unnecessary allergy tests and allergen immunotherapy. They said he laundered the money he made from these crimes through more than 50 bank accounts and shell corporations to hide the money and to purchase real estate and fund investment accounts that he controlled.

Ifediba was also ordered to forfeit his interest in real estate and the contents of financial investments, collectively worth approximately $2.5 million. The court also ordered him to pay $2.5 million, representing the proceeds of healthcare fraud offenses, and $1.1 million, representing the proceeds of the controlled substances offenses. 

The FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration investigated the case as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force operation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mohammad Khatib and Austin Shutt and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Weil prosecuted the case.