TAMPA, Fla. — A judge sentenced a local doctor to three and a half years in federal prison on Monday after a jury found him guilty in May 2022.
Dr. Steven Chun from Sarasota was accused of conspiring to pay and receive kickbacks in connection with prescribing a highly addictive fentanyl spray.
The sentence of his then-sales representative, Daniel Tondre, is still unknown, but a hearing is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 5, at 5 p.m.
Federal prosecutors called it a "bribe to prescribe" that began in 2012.
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 the opioid, 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.
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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.”
HHS-OIG: Submit a complaint.
