WORLD NEWS FLASH
UNITED STATES
Justice Department Sues Walmart
In a civil complaint filed Dec. 22, the Department of Justice has alleged that Walmart Inc. unlawfully dispensed controlled substances from pharmacies it operated across the country and unlawfully distributed controlled substances to those pharmacies throughout the height of the prescription opioid crisis.
The complaint alleges that this unlawful conduct resulted in hundreds of thousands of violations of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The Justice Department seeks civil penalties, which could total in the billions of dollars, and injunctive relief.
“It has been a priority of this administration to hold accountable those responsible for the prescription opioid crisis. As one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors in the country, Walmart had the responsibility and the means to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids,” said Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division. “Instead, for years, it did the opposite – filling thousands of invalid prescriptions at its pharmacies and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids and other drugs placed by those pharmacies. This unlawful conduct contributed to the epidemic of opioid abuse throughout the United States. Today’s filing represents an important step in the effort to hold Walmart accountable for such conduct.”
The result of a multi-year investigation by the department’s Prescription Interdiction & Litigation (PIL) Task Force, the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware alleges that Walmart violated the CSA in multiple ways as the operator of its pharmacies and wholesale drug distribution centers. The complaint alleges that, as the operator of its pharmacies, Walmart knowingly filled thousands of controlled substance prescriptions that were not issued for legitimate medical purposes or in the usual course of medical practice, and that it filled prescriptions outside the ordinary course of pharmacy practice.
The complaint also alleges that, as the operator of its distribution centers, which ceased distributing controlled substances in 2018, Walmart received hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders that it failed to report as required to by the DEA. Together, the complaint alleges, these actions helped to fuel the prescription opioid crisis.
If Walmart is found liable for violating the CSA, it could face civil penalties of up to $67,627 for each unlawful prescription filled and $15,691 for each suspicious order not reported. The court also may award injunctive relief to prevent Walmart from committing further CSA violations.
The claims made in the complaint are allegations that United States must prove if the case proceeds to trial.
The United States is represented in the filed action by attorneys from the Department of Justice Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch and from the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the District of Colorado, District of Delaware, Eastern District of North Carolina, Eastern District of New York, and Middle District of Florida. The DEA’s Dallas Field Division and Diversion Control Operations personnel investigated the case. The DEA’s Office of Chief Counsel and the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section provided substantial support.
MEXICO
The Most Dangerous Place for Journalists
In a report released Dec. 22 by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the number of journalists singled out for murder in reprisal for their work more than doubled this year, leading to a rise in overall work-related killings.
Globally, at least 30 journalists were killed on duty in 2020, including 21 reprisal murders, up from 10 murders last year. The number of deaths in combat or crossfire fell to a 20-year low.
“It’s appalling that the murders of journalists have more than doubled in the last year, and this escalation represents a failure of the international community to confront the scourge of impunity,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.
Countries with significant numbers of murders included Mexico and Afghanistan.
Mexico has long been the most dangerous country for journalists in the Western hemisphere. This year, at least five journalists were killed there, including four retaliatory murders. Journalists covering Mexico work in an environment of violent drug traffickers and entrenched corruption, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has not shown the political will to combat impunity. Most recently, a murder and a series of threats to the media by a suspected criminal gang have decimated reporting in the city of Iguala, in Guerrero state.
Worldwide, criminal groups were the most frequently suspected killers of journalists. However, in one particularly appalling case, government officials in Iran executed journalist Roohollah Zam on Dec. 12 after he was sentenced to death for his reporting on 2017 anti-government protests. Because he was jailed as of Dec. 1, Zam was also listed on CPJ’s annual census of imprisoned journalists, which is a global snapshot of those behind bars on that date (and which this year hit a record high).
“It is outrageous that Roohollah Zam appears in CPJ’s census of journalists imprisoned around the world and also the list of those killed in the same year,” Simon added. “His inclusion on both lists is testament to the abject cruelty of the Iranian regime, which cloaks itself in the veneer of legality. Zam’s killing is nothing but state-sponsored murder.”
“The fact that murder is on the rise and the number of journalists imprisoned around the world hit a record is a clear demonstration that press freedom is under unprecedented assault in the midst of a global pandemic, in which information is essential,” Simon concluded. “We must come together to reverse this terrible trend.”
MIDDLE EAST
Trump Pardons Draw Concern
The UN human rights office OHCHR, has voiced deep concern over the decision by United States President Donald Trump to grant pardons to four security guards who were tried and convicted for the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, in 2007.
OHCHR spokesperson Marta Hurtado, said in a statement on Wednesday that pardoning the four employees of private military company Blackwater, for their part in the killings that took place when they and other guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, “contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future.”
President Trump announced the decision to pardon the men on Dec. 22. A statement from the White House said that the four, all military veterans, had “a long history of service to the nation,” arguing the move reflected broad public sentiment in the US.
In 2014, a US federal court found the men guilty of murder in one case, while three were convicted of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and other charges, according to news reports.
The men were part of a Blackwater team guarding a US diplomatic convoy, and according to the US Justice Department at around noon on Sept. 16, they opened fire at the busy roundabout, believing, they said, that they were coming under attack.
Of the 14 victims hit, ten were men, two were women, and two were boys aged nine and 11. At the time, the killings were condemned around the world.
One of the four now pardoned, one was sentenced to life in prison and the others received 30-year terms, but after appeals and two retrials for one of the men – sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2019 – three of them had their sentences reduced to between 12 and 15 years.
CANADA
Psychic Mail Scheme
A Canadian citizen accused of operating a decades-long psychic mail fraud scheme was extradited to the United States and made his initial appearance Dec. 22 in federal court in Central Islip, New York, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced.
On Oct. 25, 2018, a grand jury in the Eastern District of New York indicted Patrice Runner, 54, on charges of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Runner was arrested in Ibiza, Spain, by officers of the Spanish National Police in December 2018, based on the U.S. indictment. Following extradition proceedings, the Spanish government released Runner to the custody of U.S. Postal Inspectors on Dec. 21, 2020.
“The Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch is committed to investigating and prosecuting transnational criminal schemes that target elderly and vulnerable Americans,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “As this case demonstrates, we will work with our law enforcement partners in the United States and around the world to bring to justice criminals who target Americans through mail fraud and other schemes. We thank the Spanish National Police for their efforts to apprehend Runner and ensure that he sees justice in U.S. courts.”
According to the charges, from 1994 through November 2014, Runner’s mail fraud scheme defrauded over one million victims in the United States of over $180 million. The scheme allegedly involved sending millions of U.S. consumers, many elderly and vulnerable, letters purporting to be from two well-known French psychics, promising that the recipient had the opportunity to achieve great wealth and happiness with the psychic’s assistance in exchange for payment of a fee. The letters also frequently stated that a psychic had seen a personalized vision regarding the recipient of the letter, when in fact the scheme sent nearly identical letters to tens of thousands of victims each week.
Runner and his co-conspirators obtained the names of elderly and vulnerable victims by renting and trading mailing lists with other mail fraud schemes. When a victim responded to one letter, Runner and his co-conspirators sent dozens of additional letters to the victim. Each of these additional letters also appeared to be a personalized letter from a psychic and requested additional money from the victim. In reality, the psychics had no role in sending the letters, did not receive responses from the victims, and did not send the additional letters after victims paid money.
Two of Runner’s co-conspirators, Canadian citizens Maria Thanos and Philip Lett, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of New York in June 2018 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Runner used a series of shell companies to hide his involvement in the scheme while living in multiple foreign countries, including Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and Spain.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant Director John W. Burke and Trial Attorney Ann Entwistle of the Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided critical assistance in securing Runner’s extradition. The Spanish National Police also provided assistance in securing Runner’s arrest.
An indictment is a formal charge that a defendant has committed a violation of criminal law and is not evidence of guilt. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
