Texas Pharmacy Owner Sentenced in $41M Health Insurance Fraud

A Dallas pharmacy owner who routinely billed insurance companies for headache sprays, pain creams, and scar creams never dispersed to patients was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.

Ivor Jallah, 37, was indicted in November 2020 and pleaded guilty in June 2024 to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay to 120 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $41,494,313.97 in restitution. Mr. Ivor’s coconspirator, Shannon Turley, 46, pleaded guilty in November 2023 to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and is set to be sentenced in November.

According to plea papers, Mr. Jallah and Ms. Turley – who together operated at least nine Texas pharmacies, including Preferred RX, EZ Pharmacy, Avenue H Pharmacy, and Wallis Pharmacy – paid individuals they referred to as “marketers” for insured patients’ personally identifiable information. Some patients were aware of the scheme and required the marketers pay a fee for their information; others were oblivious to the fraud.

Mr. Jallah and Ms. Turley caused employees to input the patient information onto pre-populated prescription pads. In some cases, they paid physicians to fraudulently stamp prescription forms when they had not seen patients, while in other cases, they used physicians’ stamps without their knowledge.

Initially, the pharmacies shipped out a fraction of the medications they billed to insurance. At some point, however, Mr. Jallah decided to stop shipping out any medication they billed to insurance.

When insurance companies conducted audits to determine whether the prescription claims were legitimate, Mr. Jallah and Ms. Turley fabricated drug purchase invoices to support the claims they submitted to insurance.

Mr. Jallah also directed pharmacy employees to create faux prescription delivery logs and directed the so-called “marketers” to ask patients to sign the logs regardless of whether they received prescriptions.

Over the course of the scheme, Mr. Jallah and Ms. Turley submitted at least $46 million in bogus claims to insurers, $41 million of which were reimbursed.