Port Chester Pharmacy Owner Sentenced For Medicaid Fraud

Attorney General Spitzer today announced that a former Port Chester pharmacy owner was sentenced to a term of two to six years in prison for stealing more than $600,000 from the Medicaid program and from the Village of Port Chester by billing for medications that were never dispensed.

The sentencing of John Postiglione by Westchester County Court Judge Gerald Loehr follows his June 24, 2005 guilty plea to Grand Larceny in the Second and Third Degrees. Postiglione admitted that between January 1997 and November 2003, he wrongfully received $489,973 from the Medicaid Program and $263,711 from the Village of Port Chester by billing the Medicaid program and the Village of Port Chester for expensive medications that he falsely claimed he dispensed to Medicaid recipients and to retired Village employees. In addition, Judge Loehr fined the pharmacy $5,000.

Prior to his sentencing, Postiglione fully repaid the Medicaid Program and the Village of Port Chester. He also closed his pharmacy.

As part of the investigation, an undercover investigator from the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit posed as a Medicaid recipient and purchased drugs from Postiglione’s pharmacy. When Postiglione billed for these drugs, he inflated the bill to claim reimbursement for more than $16,000 worth of medications that he never dispensed.

Spitzer noted that his office has referred the matter to the state Department of Education for a review of Postiglione’s pharmacy license.

Special Assistant Attorney General Thom O’Hanlon prosecuted the case. Senior Special Investigator Frank Bluszcz, Senior Special Investigator Nancy Calo-Kenney, Supervising Special Auditor Jean Moss, and Senior Special Auditor Investigator Sandra Alvarez of the Pearl River Regional Office of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit assisted in the investigation.