The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is pursuing criminal charges against the executive of a drug-compounding company over what it alleges to be an unlawful conspiracy between them and a number of equine veterinarians.
Specifically, the indictment accuses the executive “with participating in a conspiracy to distribute an adulterated or misbranded equine drug with intent to defraud and mislead in violation of [federal law]” by agreeing to pay a Kentucky-based veterinarian “kickbacks” to prescribe compounded equine drugs to horses the veterinarian had not “seen” pursuant to a “valid veterinarian-client-patient relationship.”
According to the indictment, “these fabricated prescriptions would result in Drug orders for [the compounding company] to compound, fill, and ship. . . . The Veterinarian received a commission based on the volume of sales for invalidly prescribed doses of the Drug.”
Before the scheduled start of the trial, the executive asked the Court to prevent the Government from introducing evidence that the company had faced various state board-of-pharmacy disciplinary actions including enforcement proceedings in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Maryland for, in some cases, dispensing drugs without patient-specific prescriptions. The Court declined to rule on the executive’s motion until it could hear further argument addressing the extent of the executive’s personal knowledge of the various state board violations.
The Court denied the executive’s motion to exclude evidence of “handshake” deals the Government claimed he had with other veterinarians to pay them for writing fake prescriptions. The Court explained that these “handshake” deals were “directly relevant to the charged conspiracy and helps explain how the conspiracy developed.”
The executive also asked the Court to prevent the Government from introducing the testimony of an expert witness who, based on her experience as a clinical veterinarian and her work for the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), was expected to opine about protocols related to the issuance by a veterinarian of a “lawful prescription.” The Court denied the executive’s motion and ruled that the Government would be permitted to proffer its expert’s testimony because it found her “education and experience qualify her as an expert — she has served both as a veterinarian in a clinical setting [and] now serves as a veterinarian in the veterinary compliance division of the FDA. . . . That [her] role at the FDA involves investigating drug compounding facilities informs her perspectives on the compounding practices of [the company].”
The executive’s trial was scheduled to begin on June 16, 2025.
United States v. Glover, No. 24-CR-370 (United States District Court for the Southern District of New York)
