Four Maryland residents have been sentenced for conspiring with an Annandale, Va.-based physician convicted of distributing more than 7,000 oxycodone pills and thousands of milliliters of codeine and hydrocodone cough syrups, according to an Oct. 2 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia.
Yared Michael Tesfaye, of Montgomery Village, Md., was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison. Elhadj Malick Diallo, of Silver Spring, Md., was sentenced to time served, about 13 months. Cameron Isaiah Lewis and Raymono Alfonzo Russell II, both of Bowie, Md., were sentenced to eight and 10 months, respectively. All four had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute Schedule II controlled substances and to acquire promethazine-codeine solution by fraud.
In 2023 and 2024, the co-conspirators obtained fraudulent prescriptions from Rotimi Iluyomade, MD, at Crossover Medical Center in Annandale, supplying him with lists of “patients” with false names and addresses and having the prescriptions sent to pharmacies in at least 16 states, according to court documents. Mr. Tesfaye was the first to visit Dr. Iluyomade and later sold “slots” with the physician to others, while Mr. Lewis and Mr. Diallo paid $300 per prescription, picked up the drugs at pharmacies and resold them, often advertising on social media. The investigation began in September 2023, when Mr. Russell was arrested trying to pick up a fraudulent prescription at a pharmacy in Honaker, Va.
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