United States v. Iriele, No. 17-13455

• Decision Date: 09 October 2020
• Docket Number: No. 17-13455
• Citation: 977 F.3d 1155
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Donatus IRIELE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

977 F.3d 1155

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Donatus IRIELE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-13455

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

October 9, 2020

Laurel Boatright, Jane Elizabeth McBath, Cassandra J. Schansman, Lawrence R. Sommerfeld, U.S. Attorney Service - Northern District of Georgia, U.S. Attorney's Office, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff - Appellee.

Sydney Rene Strickland, Leigh Ann Webster, Strickland Webster, LLC, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant - Appellant.

Before BRANCH, TJOFLAT, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.

ED CARNES, Circuit Judge:

For pill pushers and drug addicts, one part of Lakewood Avenue in south Atlanta offered one-stop shopping. There was a pill mill where they could get prescriptions for their controlled substances of choice with few, if any, questions asked. And only a short walk down the street was a pharmacy that would fill those prescriptions even if there were red flags galore. The pill mill was the Atlanta Medical & Research Clinic (AMARC) and the compliant pharmacy was the Medicine Center Pharmacy (MCP).¹ Donatus Iriele and his wife, Rosemary Ofume, ran that pharmacy. Both were indicted on various charges.

A jury found Iriele guilty of conspiring with AMARC's owners and doctors to illegally dispense controlled substances, of aiding and abetting the illegal dispensing of controlled substances, and of laundering and conspiring to launder the proceeds of those illicit sales. This is Iriele's appeal.

Ofume was convicted for many of the same crimes but she has since died. As a result, we entered an order dismissing Ofume's part of the appeal as moot and remanding that part for the district court to vacate her convictions and dismiss the indictment as to her. See United States v. Koblan, 478 F.3d 1324, 1325 (11th Cir. 2007). Our order provided that the appeal would "continue unabated" as to Iriele, and so it has.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A. The Pill Mill

Although this case is about Iriele and Ofume's pharmacy, the story starts with AMARC. It was a pain management clinic owned and operated by Godfrey and Bona Ilonzo. The clinic had multiple locations throughout Georgia, but the one at issue here was located in Lakewood, a low-income neighborhood in Atlanta. AMARC operated out of an old house surrounded by a barbed wire fence. It had only two exam rooms and little medical equipment.

Patients and employees described the clinic as small, dirty, rundown, and "sketchy." A witness testified that at one appointment, there were "roaches crawling across the exam table." Another witness testified that the clinic had "[h]oles in the floor, doors that didn't close all the way, bugs, roaches, [and] broken chairs." The sign out front described it as a clinic for "urgent care, family medicine, internal medicine, adults, women, [and] children," but did not mention pain management.

AMARC didn't operate like a normal clinic or medical facility. Instead of allowing patients to schedule appointments, employees would call patients once a month and tell them what day they could come in to see a doctor. When patients arrived, they had to put their names on a sign-in sheet and would be seen on a first-come, first-served basis. As a result, patients often showed up hours before the clinic opened and waited in line in the parking lot. One patient said there was a "rat race" to be the first person seen. Eventually the clinic hired a security guard to see that people waited in their cars instead of congregating in front of the building.

One doctor worked per shift, and he or she would normally arrive around 11:00 a.m. but sometimes much later. The doctor would see between 40 and 100 patients per day, sometimes causing the clinic to stay open until 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. Physical exams lasted between five and ten minutes and often included nothing more than a basic vitals check, a quick evaluation of whatever area of the body the patient claimed was hurting, and a urine test for drugs. After the examination, the doctor would write one or more prescriptions. At least one AMARC doctor would often write prescriptions for patients without ever examining them at all.

In almost all cases, AMARC would prescribe its patients opioids, Xanax, or Soma (a muscle relaxant). Usually the clinic would prescribe all three of those drugs to the same patient at the same time.² The doctors often gave patients prescriptions for the specific drugs that they asked for by name. The clinic did not accept insurance, credit cards, debit cards, or money orders for doctor visits; it was cash only. First-time patients paid between $300 and $350 for their visit, while returning patients paid $150. Some long-time patients of the clinic paid only $100 per visit.

Former patients and clinic employees testified that most of AMARC's clientele was made up of drug addicts and drug dealers, many of whom traveled from far away and in groups to visit the clinic. Witnesses recalled seeing patients who were underweight, had track marks on their arms, were missing teeth, had lost their hair, and were otherwise "disheveled" and "shaggy." Witnesses also described how patients showed up "high" and would fall asleep, exchange medications, and shoot up drugs in the bathroom while waiting to see a doctor. One witness described AMARC's patients as "living and talking and wanting and breathing for one thing": pills.

B. The Compliant Pharmacy

Iriele and Ofume's pharmacy, MCP, was located just a few blocks away from AMARC, an easy walk. Whenever MCP was open either Iriele or Ofume was present. Ofume was the main pharmacist, although others worked there. Iriele had been a licensed pharmacist but no longer was. The Georgia Pharmacy Board had revoked his license in 2007 after he was caught filling forged prescriptions at a different pharmacy he owned.³

There is some evidence that the absence of a license did not always keep Iriele from filling prescriptions. Although MCP's former pharmacy technician testified that Iriele did paperwork and rang up customers instead of filling prescriptions, two former MCP customers testified that Iriele filled their prescriptions. Another witness testified that Iriele was "oftentimes" alone in the pharmacy.

Like AMARC, MCP was small, dirty, and "rundown." Customers testified that there were hardly any products on the shelves and that the few that were there were dusty and out of date. And like AMARC, MCP was a cash only establishment — at least when it came to filling prescriptions for controlled substances. No insurance accepted, only cash. According to several former customers, MCP charged a much higher price for opioids in particular than other pharmacies did. Yet, testing the laws of economics, the higher prices apparently didn't dampen demand for what MCP was offering.

MCP purchased (and hence sold) a lot more opioids than other pharmacies in the area. According to a data analyst who testified at trial, MCP was the top purchaser of oxycodone in its zip code, far outpacing the other pharmacies in that area. For example, in 2010 MCP purchased 13 times more oxycodone pills (657,900) than a nearby Walgreens (48,600). In 2011 MCP purchased seven times more oxycodone pills (500,800) than a nearby Kroger pharmacy (69,800). MCP's volume of opioid purchases also ranked high on a statewide basis. One witness presented charts showing the ten pharmacies that had purchased the most oxycodone in the State of Georgia for the years 2009 through 2012. For three of those four years, MCP was among the top ten. And for one of those years (2010) it reached the pill purchasing pinnacle, buying more oxycodone than any other pharmacy in the State of Georgia.

C. The Connection Between the Pill Mill and the Compliant Pharmacy

The vast majority of the prescriptions that MCP filled came from AMARC. From 2009 until the authorities shut down AMARC in 2012, MCP filled thousands of prescriptions from it. Those prescriptions accounted for 83% of those that MCP filled and made up more than 90% of the pharmacy's gross sales. One former customer testified that there was usually a "line of patients" going from AMARC to MCP.

It was no coincidence that most of MCP's prescriptions came from AMARC. The clinic's doctors and office employees often referred patients to MCP to have their prescriptions filled. This happened with increasing frequency as other pharmacies in the area began refusing to fill prescriptions written by AMARC's doctors.

According to AMARC's patients, clinic employees told them that they could "go right across the street and fill with[ ] no problem." An AMARC doctor testified that one of the clinic's owners had told her "Rosemary [Ofume] will fill all of our prescriptions."

AMARC and MCP were often in contact with each other about their businesses. For example, Ofume would regularly call AMARC to let the doctors know that MCP had run out of a particular drug so that the clinic could prescribe one that the pharmacy had in stock. At one point, an AMARC doctor discovered that a clinic employee was issuing forged prescriptions in the doctor's name. AMARC's owners called Ofume and asked her to help them discourage that doctor from reporting the crime to the police. Ofume not only agreed but went to the clinic to talk with the doctor in person. Another time, the owners of AMARC spoke with Ofume about the possibility of them opening a new clinic in Alabama and her opening a new pharmacy close by.

The owners and employees of both establishments were friendly with each other. The owners of AMARC would come into MCP on occasion to chat with Iriele, Ofume, and pharmacy employees. At least once Ofume was seen in the private area behind AMARC where the clinic's doctors parked their cars. And Ofume had the personal cell phone number of one of the AMARC doctors in her address book.

The owners and employees of the two establishments also did favors for each other. MCP employees who wanted to see a doctor at AMARC did not have to make an appointment or wait in line, and the...