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Former TAP employee acquitted on kickback accusation

Compliance Monitor, September 22, 2004

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A federal judge threw out the guilty plea of a former drug company employee September 14. The former employee had admitted offering kickbacks to doctors who prescribed certain medications, the Associated Press (AP) reported, but a judge said her plea should not be accepted.

The ruling comes after a jury acquitted eight of the employee's former colleagues of similar charges.

In December 2003, former TAP Pharmaceutical Products district manager Kimberlee Chase pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston to conspiracy to give inducements to physicians and other customers, and defrauding the Medicare program, AP reported.

But then in July 2004, shortly after eight other defendants were acquitted following a three-month trial, U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock wrote a memo to U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and lawyers for Chase saying that Sullivan's legal decision in accepting the guilty plea was "subject to substantial refinement."

A jury had acquitted all eight current and former employees of the Lake Forest, IL-based TAP of charges they offered doctors improper consulting fees, dinners, golf trips, and other kickbacks to get them to prescribe certain drugs. Charges were dropped mid-trial against three other employees.

TAP settled with the government in 2001 for $875 million.

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