Dr. John Verstraete Defrauded Taxpayers $1.5 Million So That He Could Sell Prescription Serostim Growth Hormone to Bodybuilders
18.10.2018

Dr. John Verstraete Defrauded Taxpayers $1.5 Million So That He Could Sell Prescription Serostim Growth Hormone to Bodybuilders

Dr. John Verstraete was a very well-liked and very popular doctor who practiced medicine in the Kansas City area. And why not? Verstraete would liberally sell anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (hGH) to his bodybuilding patients without a prescription.

There are few people who bodybuilders love more than a doctor who freely provides them with steroids and muscle-building drugs. When a doctor is involved, bodybuilders want to believe everything they are doing is legal and all of the medications they receive are legitimate pharmaceutical-quality products.

Bodybuilders should stop being so naive and gullible. These doctors are nothing more than steroid dealers attempting to use their professional status as both a marketing tool and a front for their illegal steroid trafficking enterprise.

Dr. Verstraete admittedly had a good thing going with his stockpile of inexpensive Serostim (somatropin). Bodybuilders were buying the real deal that came straight from a local pharmacy. Verstraete may have told them that the price was so cheap because it was imported from Canada. But if he did, he would have been lying.

In reality, Verstraete concocted an illegal scheme that enabled him to stockpile large supplies of Serostim at his clinic. In order to do this, Verstraete conspired with his five clinic employees at his primary medical office (Plaza Physicians Group) and his HIV/AIDS clinic (Mid-America Infectious Disease Consultants). His indicted co-conspirators were David “Jai” Jackson, Brett Courtright, Molly Even, David Baxter and Francisco “Cisco” Sherman.

First, Verstraete would prescribe Serostim to patients even if it was not medically necessary. Secondly, his staff would falsify and submit fraudulent claims to Medicare and/or Medicaid or other healthcare benefit providers so that they would pay for the Serostim. He would then offer to personally buy back the Serostim from the patients if they returned. The patients would fill the Serostim prescription at a local pharmacy. Then they would return to the clinic. And Verstraete’s staff would pay cash for the Serostim in an off-the-books all-cash transaction.

Everyone was happy. The patients received free Serostim and were able to sell it for easy cash. Bodybuilders would then buy up the pharmaceutical hGH. And Verstraete and his staff would would make big profits. Well almost everyone was happy. The United States taxpayers were being screwed once again. This time to the tune of over $1.5 million just between 2012 and November 2014.

According to court documents, Verstraete and his employees “conspired to defraud health care benefit programs of money by obtaining Serostim (HGH) from patients for whom the drugs were prescribed and paid for in full or in part by health care benefit programs, who then sold the HGH to defendant Verstraete in exchange for cash.”

But wait that’s not all. Every month, Verstraete would direct his employees to purchase large quantities of anabolic steroids and hGH from international internet sources. Verstraete imported a variety of steroids and ancillary drugs including testosterone, trenbolone, nandrolone (Deca Durabolin), Sustanon, stanozolol (Winstrol), oxandrolone (Anavar), oxymetholone, (Anadrol), Sustanon, Clomid, HCG, phentermine and sildenafil (Viagra). In total, Verstraete’s employees wired payment of $190,000 via Western Union and Moneygram between January 2010 and November 2014.

Verstraete sold so much Serostim to bodybuilders that he couldn’t keep up with the demand. He directed his employees to import Nipertropin brand hGh from Singapore.

Verstraete pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and six counts of conspiracy to dispense a controlled substance. U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner sentenced him to a prison sentence of 12-months and restitution of $1.5 million. It could have been a lot worse. Federal prosecutors had wanted Judge Fenner to sentence Verstraete under the recommending steroid sentencing guidelines of 45 to 57 months in prison.

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