Raheel Pervez, a 41-year-old pharmacist from Dix Hills, New York, and four others were indicted in Bronx Supreme Court for stealing $16 million from state Medicaid funds, the New York Daily News reports. They paid hundreds of HIV-positive people not to fill their antiretroviral (ARV) prescriptions, but still billed the state Medicaid program.

Pervez has already pleaded guilty to falsifying documents, which will put him in prison for one to three years just for that charge. The defendants operated 11 pharmacies in New York City and Long Island. About 70 percent of customers living with HIV from the Big Mart Pharmacy in Mott Haven did not receive their ARVs.

Raheel’s father Mujahid (“Peter”) Pervez faces related corruption and grand larceny charges, but he has fled to his native Pakistan. The office of the state attorney general is seeking to extradite the father to New York.

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