Former Med-Fast manager prepared to enter guilty plea

Scheme involved drugs sold to nursing homes

A former top manager of the Med-Fast Pharmacy chain and one of the company’s subsidiaries have agreed to plead guilty to their roles in a health care fraud scheme involving repackaged and misbranded drugs sold to nursing homes.

Gino Cordisco, 47, the former vice president of store operations for the Aliquippa-based company, and Iserve Technologies were charged late last month as part of a long-running investigation by federal agents.

The charges were announced this week by the U.S. Attorney’s office as part of a settlement with the company to resolve criminal and civil charges first leveled in 2013 in a pair of whistleblower lawsuits.

Mr. Cordisco has indicated he will waive indictment Nov. 11 and plead to conspiracy before U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab. Iserve, a Med-Fast subsidiary that served as a collection point for repackaged drugs, will plead Nov. 28.

The agreement with federal prosecutors also includes a nearly $2.7 million settlement with Med-Fast, owner Douglas Kaleugher and various MedFast entities to resolve the lawsuits.

According to the U.S.

Attorney’s office and a previous plea hearing for another charged conspirator, Med-Fast drivers picked up unused medications from nursing homes and delivered them to the Iserve opera ti o n on Sheffield Avenue in Aliquippa, where employees removed them from the packages and returned them to stock to be reused in other prescriptions.

The result was that drugs from different makers and with different expiration dates were mixed in with other medications in stock bottles.

The employees were then told to prepare fake labels and send the medications out for resale to other nursing homes.