Doctor ordered to pay $7.2 million as part of diet pill scheme in Mississippi
A Mississippi doctor who pleaded guilty to health care fraud last year will spend the next four years behind bars.
Dr. Shahjahan Sultan, 38, was sentenced to federal prison Tuesday and ordered to pay $7.2 million in restitution for his role in a scam involving pricey compound pain creams and diet pills, according to the Clarion Ledger.
Sultan, who once practiced in Vicksburg, was one of four people indicted in the multi-million dollar scheme. His attorney, former state Supreme Court Justice Chuck McRae, said at least $4 million is already repaid, the newspaper reported.
From 2014 to 2015, prosecutors said Sultan and his co-conspirators prescribed millions of dollars in unnecessary pain creams and pills to patients for repayment, according to the Associated Press. The doctor inked a contract with a Jackson County pharmacy in 2014 to “promote and prescribe” the medicines, regardless of if a patient needed it.
In some cases, prosecutors said Sultan was aware the medications’ added ingredients were ineffective, but prescribed them anyway.
In return, the pharmacy paid him 35% of the repayments “it received after billing health care providers for the prescriptions Sultan wrote,” the AP reported, citing federal authorities.
The doctor apologized at his sentencing hearing Tuesday.
“I was an idiot, pardon my harsh language,” he said, according to the Clarion Ledger. “This has been a monkey on my back. I want this all to go away, but it never goes away.”
“I should’ve listened to my rationale,” Sultan added.
U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett, who sentenced Sultan, said the doctor faced up to 9 years in prison and $10 million in fines. But Sultan walked away with a lighter term for his cooperation with the investigation, the newspaper reported. The judge added that he had never sentenced anyone “who was any more remorseful.”
“The court concluded you will not offend again,” Starrett said.
Charged alongside Sultan were Tennessee doctor Thomas Sturdavant, 56, and nurses Freda Covington, 54, and Fallon Page, 36, both of Mississippi, WLBT reported.
They will be sentenced in the coming months, according to the station.
At his hearing, Sultan warned other young doctors not to fall into the same trap he did.
“I lost just about everything,” he told the court, according to AP. “But I’m not the victim here. Thinking that you’re part of the problem — it’s a hard pill to swallow.”