Federal jury convicts Grosse Pointe Park pharmacist of filling forged drug prescriptions
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The owner and operator of a former Grosse Pointe Park pharmacy is to be sentenced after a federal jury convicted her of filling forged prescriptions for controlled substances over several years in exchange for more than $640,000, federal prosecutors said.
Hasna Bashir Iwas, 62, of New Baltimore, who owned and operated the former Beacon Pointe Pharmacy, was convicted last week in U.S. District Court in Detroit on 26 charges related to conspiracy and the unlawful distribution of prescription drug controlled substances.
Sentencing is set for Feb. 20. Iwas' bond was revoked and she was remanded to custody pending sentencing, per court records and a news release Monday from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit.
Prosecutors said the crimes occurred between 2013 and 2018. Iwas regularly filled forged prescriptions for drugs given to her by one or two people, they said.
Dead patients and unlabeled prescription bottles
In all, 1,291 forged prescriptions were presented in the names of more than 50 different "patients" — some of whom were dead, in prison or never in the pharmacy, according to the release.
Iwas received more than $640,000 in cash in exchange for filling the phony prescriptions. Prosecutors said Iwas initially insisted each of the patients was present in the pharmacy when the forged prescriptions were filled, but evidence at trial showed otherwise.
They said video evidence showed Iwas distributing controlled drugs to the pill dealers/forgers in prescription bottles without required labeling. Without a label containing the names of the pharmacy and patient, drug strength, quantity and directions for use, the pills could not be traced back to the pharmacy when they were sold on the street, per the release.
It stated Iwas shredded the labels that should have been on the bottles.
Prosecutors said an audit of the pharmacy showed "massive shortages" of controlled substances for the pharmacy. More than 70,000 dosage units of oxycodone and more than 36,000 dosage units of Xanax were purchased, delivered to the pharmacy and not dispensed under any prescription, per the release.
More: 4 metro Detroit doctors charged in $41M opioid scheme
The U.S. Attorney's Office announced the charges against Iwas in 2021 when a grand jury indictment was unsealed. That release said the indictment added Iwas to earlier indictments charging others, including a doctor who pleaded guilty but died of natural causes before sentencing, with operating a prescription drug ring in Detroit, Grosse Pointe Park, River Rouge and elsewhere.
Orville Greene, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Detroit field office, said Iwas "abused her pharmacist license to enrich herself and in so doing, she knowingly fueled the deadly opioid epidemic currently gripping our nation."
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Federal jury convicts Grosse Pointe Park pharmacist of filling phony prescriptions
