DEA and Police Seize Millions Worth of Classic and Exotic Cars [Archive] - NJFBOA - Home of New Jersey's Camaros and Firebirds

coolmanvette75

03-13-2011, 07:17 PM

aparently who ever owned these cars had 11 pain clinics in southern florida that got raided for illegally perscribing and over-perscribing. i wonder what they will do with these cars.

btw, did anyone else notice that all of the agents were terrible at driving, especially the stick cars...

edit:
Hundreds of federal, state and local law enforcement agents swooped into South Florida on Wednesday to bust clinics that were illegally prescribing narcotics, resulting in charges against 18 people, including six doctors.
While South Florida suffered under an epidemic of pill mills that attracted addicts and drug traffickers from around the nation to obtain pain killers, more than a dozen agencies have quietly conducted Operation Pill Nation since 2009. More than 340 undercover officers obtained narcotics from over 60 doctors at over 40 pain clinics in Florida. Wilfredo Ferrer, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said the arrests announced Wednesday were the first wave in the ongoing investigation.
Nearly 90 percent of the OxyContin ordered by physicians in the first half of 2010 came to Florida, and the biggest bust made it clear who was benefiting from that while seven Florida residents die from the drug each day.
The federal indictment against Davie resident Vincent Colangelo, allegedly the primary owner and manager of seven pain clinics and a pharmacy that were illegally distributing narcotics without medical justification, seeks forfeiture of more than $22 million in cash and assets. Colangelo’s operation made a profit of $150,000 a day, said Mark Trouville, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Miami field office.
Officials seized more than 46 vehicles as part of the investigation. The Dodge Vipers, Lamborghinis, Bentley and Rolls-Royce lined up outside the DEA office in Weston made it look like an exotic car show. Agents also seized a trailer park in Okeechobee and a home in Davie’s Imagination Farms.Charged along with Colangelo as employees in the clinics were Nicholaus Thomas, of Fort Lauderdale; Rachel Bass, of Pompano Beach; Michael Plesak, of Plantation; Jeremiah Flowers, of Fort Myers; and Wayne Richards, of Lighthouse Point. All but Flowers had been arrested. The charges also include money laundering.
The U.S. attorney charged that Colangelo owned the following clinics that dispensed more than 660,000 dosage units of oxycodone, most of it without a legitimate medical purpose:

Atlantic Medical Solutions, Pompano Beach
Seaside Pain Management/Commercial Medical Group, Fort Lauderdale
Broward Urgent Care, Fort Lauderdale
All Pain Management, Dania Beach
Friendly Urgent Care, Pembroke Park
VIP Pain Center, Miami
Urgent Care and Surgical Care Center of Fort Lauderdale/Integrated Medical Group
Friendly Pharmacy, Fort Lauderdale
The clinics were held in nominee names, according to the indictment.
New patients were charged between $250 and $350 a visit – $500 if they wanted to move to the head of the line, Ferrer said. In many cases, the staff would tell patients exactly what to say so they could prescribe them pain drugs.
When asked about the doctors involved in Colangelo’s clinics, Ferrer said they were not charged, but the investigation is ongoing. He expects charges to come against owners and employees at other clinics.
“We aren’t here to second guess medical judgment,” Ferrer said. “We are here to prosecute doctors and clinics who are really drug dealers hiding behind a medical license.”
Trouville said that seven doctors voluntarily gave up their DEA licenses Wednesday. He added that four pain medication distributors were shut down because they should have known the amount of drugs they were selling to doctors was not realistic.
At the same time, the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office filed charges against 11 people in connection to seven pain clinics. The charges include racketeering, trafficking in oxycodone and money laundering.
Six of those arrests were connected to North Palm Beach Pain Management in Lake Park: owners Anthony Laterza and Donna Palemire; Dr. Carlos Gonzalez Jr.; nurse Betsy Sanchez; and physician assistants Derrick Davis and Martine Lifleur. The allegations include that Gonzalez would pre-sign prescriptions so the staff could issue them to patients without him seeing them.
At Delray Pain Management, the Palm Beach County Sheriff arrested Dr. Zvi Harry Perper (son of Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper), physician assistant Mitchell Arin Cohen and Kent Arthur Murry, the leaseholder of the building. Murry is accused of “doctor shopping” – visiting multiple physicians over a four-year period to obtain thousands of pain pills.
The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office also filed charges against Dr. Robert Eugene Elessar of 45th Street Medical in Lake Worth and Dr. Angelo Pace of West Palm Beach Medical.
Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office arrested Dr. Jeffrey Lipman, of Midtown Miami Medical Group, on charges of illegally dispensing narcotics. The complaint alleged that he ordered 288,560 dose units of oxycodone in the first seven months of 2010. That was 10 times the national average for a physician.
“If you are working in a pill mill, we have probably bought dope from you and we are probably coming to see you soon,” Trouville said, referring to the undercover operation.