Miguel Baron, 62, was walking onto a one-way flight to Toronto at LaGuardia Airport when New York state authorities arrested him. Prosecutors say the Queens pharmacy owner took more than $31 million from Medicaid and a related state drug program for HIV medicine. Attorney General Letitia James announced the arrest and indictment on Oct. 7, and Baron has not been convicted of anything.
What the attorney general alleges
According to the attorney general’s announcement, Baron, who lives in Yonkers, collected the money as reimbursements for HIV drugs from Medicaid and from the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, the state program known as ADAP. The period in question runs from Jan. 1, 2023 to April 29, 2026. Prosecutors say the pharmacy got there through cash kickbacks to Medicaid recipients and through drug buybacks, the two methods the office names.
The kickbacks were often $150 to $250, according to the announcement, and they went to Medicaid recipients. Prosecutors allege the arrangement turned prescriptions into reimbursements, and that the money flowed from public programs to the pharmacy. Anyone on Medicaid who is offered cash, a gift or a favor in exchange for filling a prescription at a particular pharmacy is looking at the same kind of arrangement. Medicare’s own guidance puts it plainly: do not accept money or gifts in exchange for free medical care…