Doctor found guilty in pain pill conspiracy

A South Florida doctor was convicted Friday of participating in a conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

Dr. Andres Mencia, of Fort Lauderdale, will be sentenced on Sept. 7 by U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas.

Mencia, 64, was arrested in February and released on a $500,000 bond after being accused of billing taxpayers for fake medical consultations and taking cash to prescribe pain pills that were not medically necessary.

Federal prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of at least $3.3 million and two of the doctor’s homes in Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach.

Mencia practiced in Oakland Park at AGI Medical & Dental, which investigators described as a pill mill. Many of the prescriptions written there were for Oxycodone, they said.

He prescribed more than 1.2 million dosage units of opioid drugs to his patients between January 2015 and August 2017, investigators say.

Medicare and Medicaid were improperly billed for many of the medical visits.

From January 2014 through October 2017, Mencia, and three members of his office staff conspired to perform sham consultations with cashpaying patients, investigators said.

The true purpose of the consultations was to improperly issue patients prescriptions for opioids and narcotics, including Oxycodone, OxyContin and Percocet, in exchange for cash payments.

Oscar Luis VenturaRodriguez, 41, of Fort Lauderdale, Nadira SampathGrant, 51, of Margate, and John Mensah, 50, of Miami, previously pleaded guilty to unlawfully distributing controlled substances.

Judge Dimitrouleas sentenced Ventura-Rodriguez to 60 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Sampath-Grant is awaiting a sentencing date.

Mensah will be sentenced on Aug. 24.

Mencia surrendered his Florida medical license and his DEA license to prescribe drugs after his arrest.