California clinic owner sentenced for selling oxycodone prescriptions for cash

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A Southern California man who operated a network of medical clinics has been sentenced to 216 months in federal prison for running a drug trafficking ring that sold thousands of illegal oxycodone prescriptions for cash, the Justice Department said in an April 8 news release.

Between 2017 and 2020, Justin Cozart of Woodland Hills operated the ChiroMed medical clinics, which he used to employ physicians who wrote opioid prescriptions for sham patients recruited by co-conspirators. The prescriptions were filled, the pills consolidated and shipped to a distributor in the Boston area for sale on the black market.

A federal jury convicted Mr. Cozart in February 2025 on counts of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and money laundering. One of the clinic’s physicians, John Korzelius pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and is scheduled to be sentenced June 8. Prosecutors have secured nine convictions in the case.

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