Two former employees of a medical practice with locations in Framingham and Northbridge have been sentenced to time in federal prison for a drug conspiracy involving Adderall, officials said Friday.
Meghan Giacomuzzi, 39, of the Whitinsville part of Northbridge, was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman to one year and one day in prison and three years of supervised release, according to the office of Acting United States Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell.
In February 2019, Giacomuzzi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute Adderall and six counts of distributing and dispensing Adderall, Mendell’s office said in a statement.
Rene Ruliera, 54, of Southborough, was sentenced Thursday by Hillman to two years in prison and three years of supervised release. In August 2019, Ruliera pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute Adderall and four counts of distributing and possessing with intent to distribute Adderall, the statement said.
Authorities said the defendants between March 2016 and February 2018 conspired with Leslie Caraceni to distribute Adderall, an amphetamine, for reasons other than for a legitimate medical purpose and not in the usual course of medical practice.
Caraceni hired Ruliera and Giacomuzzi to work at her medical practice in Framingham and later in Whitinsville, the statement said, and enlisted both to sell and distribute Adderall to individuals who had not been medically examined or given a clinical diagnosis to warrant a prescription.
Office visitors met with either Ruliera or Giacomuzzi, discussed their desired prescription, paid for their office visit and left with a signed prescription for Adderall. Those office visits lasted just minutes and each such visit cost about $200, payable in cash or through a credit card or debit card, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Caraceni collected the cash from the office or received funds through deposits to her bank account, according to the statement.
Caraceni gave Ruliera and Giacomuzzi blank prescription pads and explained how to fill out prescriptions for sale. Electronic communications between the three documented Caraceni’s knowledge of the prescriptions written by Ruliera and Giacomuzzi, the number of office visitors seen in her absence and the profits resulting from their sale of prescriptions to those visitors, the statement said.
Between November 2015 and July 2018, records from the Massachusetts Prescription Monitoring Program show that well more than 1,500 prescriptions for Adderall, amounting to more than 110,000 pills, were filled in based on Caraceni’s prescriptions, authorities said.
On Jan. 15, Caraceni was sentenced by Hillman to seven years in prison and three years of supervised release after previously pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute Adderall and three counts of distributing and dispensing Adderall.
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