A pharmacist has been remanded in custody after she pleaded guilty to stealing €70,000 from the Health Service Executive in a scheme involving falsifying drug payment scheme claims.
Christine Crowley (72) from Main Street, Drimoleague, Co Cork pleaded guilty to 21 sample counts of theft and fraud from a total of 174 charges .
The case followed a five year long investigation by gardaí into the falsification of claims under the Drug Payment/Long Term Illness Schemes operated by the HSE.
On Friday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said he believed the deception was so well thought out – to the point where Crowley had instructed some of her staff to participate in the fraud – it indicated a level of criminality that was so egregious he felt he had to impose a custodial sentence.
He agreed to an application by the pharmacist’s lawyer to adjourn sentencing to next month to allow him obtain a medical report on Crowley.
The judge remanded her in custody for sentence on April 4th and warned no one should assume that he wasn’t going to impose a jail term on that date.
Det Garda Liz O'Sullivan said gardaí began investigating Crowley in July 2009 following a complaint from the HSE after its inspectors had carried out an audit of two pharmacies that she owned in Dunmanway.
HSE inspectors found discrepancies at both her pharmacies, Crowley's Pharmacy and Kerr's Pharmacy between the quantity of prescription medicines that had been dispensed and the quantity of medicines that Crowley had claimed for under the Drug Payment Scheme.
Gardaí searched the two pharmacies under warrant and seized a large amount of documentation as well as copies of computer records and found the HSE had reimbursed Crowley for fictitious medicines that had never been dispensed to patients.
The amount of documentation seized by gardaí covering the period from 2004 to 2009 was so enormous they took an operational decision to carry out a detailed investigation on the six-month period from January to June 2009, said Det Garda O’Sullivan.
They found Crowley had made false claims in respect of 422 patients. They took witness statements from 83 patients and when they examined claims in respect of a sample of three of these witnesses, they found that similar fraudulent claims were made between 2004 and 2008.
Crowley had instructed three staff members to implement the fraud which was highly sophisticated and over the six months snapshot period that gardaí examined, she had obtained €70,916 in fraudulent claims which she forged, said Det Garda O’Sullivan.
“In reality, the medicines were never prescribed by any medical practitioner, were never dispensed by the pharmacist and were never received by the patient even though claims were made for them by the pharmacist and she was paid for them by the HSE,” she said.
The HSE recouped the €70,916 from Crowley by stopping drug scheme payments to her for 12 months during which time she continued to dispense medicines on the scheme but at her own expense. Other monies were the subject of civil litigation between the HSE and Crowley.
Det Garda O’Sullivan confirmed that Crowley had no previous convictions but pointed out she did not co-operate with gardaí when she was arrested in June 2012 and exercised her right to silence during interview, replying ‘No comment’ to all questions put to her by gardaí.
Defence counsel, Jim O’Mahony said that his client had indicated earlier this year that she was going to plead guilty and by doing so she saved the state the expense of a complex trial which would have run for five weeks and involved calling 174 witnesses.
He asked the judge not to impose a custodial sentence, saying the matter had devastated his client’s life. She now experienced health problems after suffering a burst ulcer due to stress and also looked after her 74-year-old husband who was in very poor health.
