(WWJ) – A Macomb County woman who used to run a pharmacy in Grosse Pointe Park has been convicted of more than two dozen federal charges for allegedly forging prescriptions selling thousands of pills to drug dealers.
Hasna Bashir Iwas of New Baltimore was charged with the unlawful distribution of Schedule II, III, IV and V drugs and a federal jury last week returned a guilty verdict, U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison announced Monday.
Iwas, 62, ran the Beacon Pointe Pharmacy between 2013-18 and authorities say she “engaged in several interrelated criminal schemes.”
Iwas “regularly filled forged prescriptions for controlled substances presented to her by one or two individuals,” according to Ison’s office. The 1,291 forged prescriptions were presented in the names of over 50 different “patients.”
She received more than $640,000 in cash in exchange for filling the forged prescriptions.
Though she initially insisted each of the individual patients was present in her pharmacy when the forged prescriptions were filled, evidence presented during the federal trial showed that several of the patients were dead, in prison, or were actually never in the pharmacy at all, according to Ison’s office.
Video evidence showed Iwas “distributing controlled drugs to the pill dealers/forgers in prescription pill bottles without required labeling.” Without a label containing the pharmacy name, patient’s name, drug strength, quantity and directions for use, the pills could not be traced back to her pharmacy when they were sold on the street, officials said.
She shredded the labels that should have been on the pill bottles, according to the attorney’s office.
An audit of the Beacon Pointe Pharmacy showed “massive shortages of controlled substances” that left the pharmacy without any prescriptions at all.
In total, more than 70,000 doses of Oxycodone 30mg and over 36,000 doses of Xanax 2mg were purchased, delivered to the pharmacy, and not dispensed under any prescription.
Iwas is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 20, 2024. She has been remanded to jail, pending sentencing.
The investigation was conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General, with assistance from the Detroit Police Department.