Three physicians are among five people charged in an alleged scheme to illegally distribute opioids through a cash-only Detroit clinic, according to an Oct. 22 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Luis Rodriguez, MD, now of Orlando, Fla.; Nayantara Jnananand, MD, of Plymouth, Mich.; and Prashanti Franklin, MD, of Okemos, Mich., allegedly worked at Woodward Boulevard Medical Building at various times and prescribed opioids with high street value, including oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone and Percocet. The indictment alleges that Clara Wilkerson used her companies to recruit and pay physicians to prescribe at fraudulent clinics from 2018 through September 2024. Latanya Wallace-Hardiman owned and operated the Detroit clinic.
The clinic refused insurance and charged “patients” $250 to $500 in cash per visit, collecting the fee only when they got the opioid prescription they wanted. Patient recruiters sometimes paid people $100 or more to see the physicians, then filled the prescriptions and sold the pills on the street. From 2021 to 2024, physicians at the clinic allegedly wrote prescriptions for more than 500,000 dosage units of Schedule II controlled substances worth more than $4.6 million on the street.
The physicians face drug conspiracy and related charges, and Ms. Wilkerson and Ms. Wallace-Hardiman also face money laundering charges. Each count carries up to 20 years in prison. An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt.
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