IT’S NO VACATION –
Dec. 19, 2021 – A man in charge of operations at a West Palm Beach addiction treatment center pleaded guilty this week to patient brokering more than 30 people.
In a case dating back to late 2018, Mark Sanchez admitted he helped trade fake prescriptions with pharmacies in exchange for money from insurance companies, according to court records.
Sanchez, 43, pleaded guilty to patient brokering Wednesday and was sentenced to five years in jail. If no new criminal charges are filed against him by February, a judge will shorten his sentence to 18 months, according to court records. Prescriptions ordered by Sanchez and his partners usually never made it to patients, according to state prosecutors.
Instead insurance companies were billed by the pharmacies and in return the pharmacies would pay kickbacks to Sanchez from the money they received from insurance proceeds, according to court documents.
Investigators said the hand-written prescriptions would be ordered without the knowledge of the patient or medical staff.
