TAMPA, Fla. — A judge sentenced former pharmaceutical sales representative Daniel Tondre to four years in prison on Thursday for his role in a kickback conspiracy prosecutors called a "bribe to prescribe" between 2012 and 2015.
The sentencing comes a week after Dr. Steven Chun was sentenced to three and a half years. In May, a jury found the two guilty in a healthcare fraud kickback conspiracy connected to prescribing a highly addictive fentanyl spray.
The ABC Action News I-Team first reported on Dr. Steven Chun in 2019 after discovering through federal data that the drugmaker Insys paid him more than $275,000 from 2013 to 2015, at one time putting him among the company's highest-paid doctors.
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Insys Therapeutics makes the drug Subsys, a fentanyl spray. Insys paid Dr. Chun to talk and educate others about opioids, but the federal government said the "speaker program" Chun was a part of was a "sham" designed to pump more of the medication to more patients and pad the pockets of sales reps and the company.
Prosecutors argued a kickback conspiracy influenced the Sarasota pain management doctor's prescribing and was fueled by Insys and carried out by Tondre, who had Dr. Chun in his territory.
At Tondre's sentencing hearing, the government said, unlike sales reps in other parts of the country, Tondre showed "a stunning lack of remorse."
Tondre's neighbor, his ex-wife's husband, and his wife, who is pregnant with their second child, were all in court to speak to his character, saying he is compassionate and someone who is always eager to help.
Tondre then spoke and said, "I take responsibility for the things that I've done wrong."
Tondre said he is not a greedy person and that he "simply fluffed sign-in sheets."
Those sign-in sheets listed people at speaker events who weren't there.
"It impacts patient care," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelley Howard-Allen said. "And the patient's ability to trust their doctors. And compromises the independent medical judgment of healthcare professionals."
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In the trial, the government said the payments were illegal kickbacks and bribes, with forged sign-in sheets, signatures copied and pasted, and low attendance, often only by friends and family at the speaker programs. As the payments came in, federal prosecutors showed that Chun's prescriptions went up.
In an emailed statement to the I-Team in 2019, Dr. Chun said, "These speaker presentations had absolutely no impact on my prescribing habits. I have always been dedicated to my patients and have provided them with the highest medical care."
Chun's attorney argued in closing statements that "he could not be bribed" and that he believed in the product, Subsys, and that the medication was in the best interest of his patients. She said he did not know Insys was tracking his prescriptions, paid for in whole or in part by Medicare.
Tondre's attorney said in his closing argument that he "had no control over the kickback fraud scheme" and was under pressure by Insys.
Federal prosecutors showed a text in court, referring to Chun, that said, “He knows numbers are low; he is working on it.”
At Dr. Chun's sentencing hearing, a woman came to share her experience as a former patient.
“I was a patient of Dr. Chun since 2005. I had only been in Florida a few months; I had costochondritis," Carol Albrecht said. "He gave me Oxycodone, Oxycontin, then a couple months later, I was like the original fentanyl girl.”
Albrecht saw Chun until 2013. It was during those years she spiraled into addiction.
She blamed Chun's prescribing.
“He addicted me. Without me even knowing it," Albrecht said. “My life is never going to be the same. And I thought I should share that with him.”
Albrecht said she trusted Dr. Chun and that she was at court to speak for other patients, alive and dead.
In the federal courtroom, she turned to Chun and said, “You deserve every minute that you’re going to spend in prison.”
Chun apologized to the court, his family and his patients, but said his intention was pure, that he wanted to help patients and never prescribed anything medically unnecessary.
He said, “Money wasn’t my motivator. It was doing the right thing for patients.”
Chun said his biggest regret was not seeing what was happening behind his back, with Insys targeting him as a speaker.
A close friend then spoke and said Chun "was most happy when he was treating his patients."
“When a doctor accepts kickbacks to prescribe a particular drug, a certain drug, without considering other options, not only does that subvert the integrity of the healthcare system, but it potentially puts patients at risk," Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryan Lynch, with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General in Tampa, said. “There should be a level of trust that if the doctor’s prescribing it, this is really what you need and it’s the best option.”
The judge said in court of Chun, "We're here because he had his paws out for money."
Albrecht said she was disappointed in the sentence.
“My life’s ruined and he’s just going to spend a couple of years in prison," she said.
Chun and Tondre each have 14 days to appeal. Barring any changes, they will surrender on February 1.
HHS-OIG: Submit a complaint.
