Where are the doctors who fueled a $6 million Miami pill mill? In prison, retired, dead
As of last week, Dr. Kerry Lane has one less career option after he finishes his federal prison sentence. The state Board of Medicine revoked Lane’s license, an action that came as no surprise.
Lane is the latest doctor from West Miami-Dade “pain management clinic” General Care Center to receive professional discipline along with learning prison or probation discipline. Just under $6.7 million in cash, according to court documents, flowed to Habib clinic owner Geagea Palacios and the doctors on a river of opioid prescriptions.
READ MORE: The owner who ran a $3 million Miami pill mill and the doctors who prescribed for him
Drs. Lane, Manuel Barbeito, John Cosby, Nancy Garcia, Jorge Gaviria and Alan Swartz made $60 to $120 per oxycodone prescription from Palacios while patients paid $250 to $300 per prescription at 7805 Coral Way. That’s from Palacios’ admission of facts in his guilty plea to one count of unlawfully distributing oxycontin and one count of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute oxycontin.
Earlier this month, Palacios filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th District concerning his guilty plea and the forfeiture. The filing said that when even when allocuting in court Palacios said “at most he had been negligent, but always believed that “everything that happened there was lawful and according to state and federal protocols for prescribing medication.”
As they shared in the money, the doctors also shared the experience of becoming convicted felons subject to sentencing and consequences that continue tumbling down on them.
The doctors:
Dr. Manuel Barbeito, Miami Lakes
Dr. Manuel Barbeito, 59, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to dispense and distribute controlled substances. In his guilty plea, he admitted making $1,500 to $2,000 salary, plus $120 per prescription.
“During his period of employment at GCC, Barbeito prescribed at least 435 grams of oxycodone to patients who had no legitimate medical need for the drug,” his guilty plea says.
In July 2022, Barbeito was sentenced to 5 years, 10 months in prison and gave up $314,980 cash to satisfy forfeiture claims. Helping the government prosecute Palacios and Dr. Bruno Gallo, who took his own life two weeks after being charged in federal court, got Barbeito’s sentenced reduced in October to three years, six months.
When Gallo didn’t show up for a hearing, he was declared a fugitive on March 7, 2022 — 17 days after his death.
“Dr. Barbeito also engaged in crucial undercover proactive cooperation against two additional targets (Lisset Martinez and Adriana Benedi) who were later charged with, and pled guilty to, continuing the pill mill operation at a successor clinic,” federal prosecutors said in court documents. “Dr. Barbeito’s undercover work was crucial to both the indictment of these targets and their eventual guilty pleas.”
Barbeito filed to have his guilty plea vacated on the grounds that two of his attorneys had a conflict of interest, including one being a former FBI agent. U.S. District Court Judge Jose Martinez, noting Barbeito’s confession and guilty plea, rejected that request.
Barbeito’s scheduled to get out of federal prison on May 8, 2025. An administrative complaint that will likely end with his license being revoked was filed in June less than a week after an emergency suspension order hit Barbeito’s license.
READ MORE: Miami doctor got his license suspended in June. He’s been in prison since September
Dr. John Cosby, the Bronx, New York
Most of the period from 2017 through 2020 that the General Care Center pill mill ran, state records listed Dr. John Cosby as General Care’s agent and his Center for Integrative Health as General Care’s lone officer.
Cosby pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and dispense a controlled substance. His admission of facts says he received $100 per prescription of 30 mg oxycodone tablets.
Cosby’s Florida license was suspended on June 23, 2022. He had just begun serving his three-year sentence at FMC Devens federal prison medical facility in Massachusetts when he died at the age of 72 on Oct. 27, 2022.
READ MORE: A Broward doctor from New York is banned from female patients and controlled substances
Dr. Nancy Garcia, Hallandale Beach
Dr. Nancy Garcia’s guilty plea said she received $100 per prescription and admitted sometimes she didn’t even go through the pretense of seeing the patient.
Garcia, 65, originally got a five-year sentence, which was knocked down to two years, nine months after helping with related prosecutions.
To keep her 3-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom, 1,856-square-foot Hallandale Beach condominium from being lost in forfeiture, she ponied up $282,550 instead. An apartment 600 feet smaller and three floors lower sold for $425,000 in June.
Garcia’s license has been revoked. She’s scheduled to be in federal prison until March 16, 2025.
Dr. Jorge Gaviria, Miami Lakes
Dr. Jorge Gaviria’s guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute and dispense a controlled substance says he prescribed about 94,966 tablets of 30 mg strength oxy. Gaviria says he got paid about $100 per prescription.
Gaviria’s original sentence of eight years, four months has been reduced twice — first to five years, then, in March, to two years, nine months. He was also hit with a $330,000 forfeiture judgment.
Gaviria, 63, is scheduled to be released on Dec. 19, 2024, exactly two years after his medical license revocation posted.
Dr. Kerry Lane, Boca Raton
Dr. Kerry Lane, 69, also got about $100 per prescription and prescribed about 49,000 oxy tablets. Helping convict others got his original sentence of five years, 10 months reduced to three years, four months.
Before the Justice Department could snag Lane’s Sparta, New Jersey home in forfeiture, it was sold at a foreclosure auction.
Lane is scheduled to be released from federal custody on May 26, 2024, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. His medical license was revoked on Aug. 15.
Alan Swartz, Sunny Isles Beach
Dr. Alan Swartz got $15,900 on 264 prescriptions at General Care, an average of $60 per prescription. That’s in forfeiture court documents.
Swartz, 78, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and received three years’ probation on Dec. 8, 2021. His online Florida Department of Health license profile says he retired before his license could be yanked.
