A federal jury in Houston convicted a Spring pharmacist Friday of running a scheme that funneled more than $2 million in illegal kickbacks to a clinic owner in exchange for patient referrals, part of a fraud that ultimately drained over $20 million from a federal workers’ compensation program. Tronown Thomas, 54, owner and operator of Rayford ACP Pharmacy, was found guilty following a five-day trial on charges of conspiracy to pay health care kickbacks.
According to the US Attorney SDTX, Thomas paid the kickbacks between November 2015 and September 2017 to a Houston clinic owner in exchange for patient referrals, which allowed Rayford ACP Pharmacy to collect more than $20 million in reimbursements for compounded medications from the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, per the U.S. Department of Justice. That program is designed to cover medical treatment costs for injured federal employees, not to enrich pharmacy owners who game its reimbursement system.
During the trial, defense attorneys argued that the payments Thomas made were for legitimate marketing services rather than illegal referral kickbacks, but the jury rejected that claim, the Justice Department noted. U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for November 12, 2026, where Thomas faces up to five years in federal prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. He has been permitted to remain free on bond in the meantime.
A Case Years in the Making
Thomas’s conviction is the culmination of a prosecution that began back in April 2022, when he was originally indicted alongside five co-defendants. Those included Houston physician Dr. Charles Willis and clinic owner Henry Gonzales, all accused of conspiring to bill federal employee workers’ compensation for medically unnecessary compound drugs, the Justice Department’s Southern District of Texas office said in its original announcement…