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Medical offices in various parts of the state – including Wayne, Morristown and Bridgewater – were broken into by Divinete Jeffries, 30, of East Orange, Attorney General Matthew Platkin said.
Jefferies snatched prescription pads that were then forged and given to accomplices who submitted them to various pharmacies using stolen IDs and bogus driver’s licenses, according to an indictment returned by a state grand jury.
Unwitting pharmacists filled the prescriptions for promethazine with codeine, a cough syrup abused by opioid addicts, the indictment says.
Also charged in the takedown were Kevin Lucanto, 48, of Paterson; Akeem Adelekan, 28, of East Orange; Otto Lachenauer, 43, of Westfield; and Satia Salters, 25, of East Orange, Platkin said.
Running the investigation was the New Jersey Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, assisted by various federal, state, and local authorities, the attorney general said.
It led to an 80-count indictment involving crimes that spanned 11 counties, he said.
A Superior Court judge ordered Jeffries held in the Middlesex County Jail on various charges, including conspiracy, burglary, ID theft, manufacturing false government documents and obtaining drugs by fraud, among other counts.
The rest were released.
Detective Dominique DeFrancisci led the investigation for the Medical Fraud Control Unit, assisted by Detective Chantel Blake, Platkin said.
Participating, he said, were the DEA, New Jersey State Police, prosecutors' offices in Bergen, Essex, Morris, Sussex, Ocean and Hunterdon counties, the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office and police in Paramus, Tenafly, Wayne, Brick, Edison, Morristown, East Orange, West Caldwell, Toms River, Tinton Falls, Bridgewater, Hackettstown, Woodbridge Franklin Borough, Califon, Millburn, Newton and Sparta.
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