Pharmacist gets nine months for NHF fraud

A pharmacist who swindled $7 million from the National Health Fund (NHF), on the pretext that he had filled prescriptions for patients has been jailed for nine months.

Thirty-eight-year-old Ainsworth Reynolds, owner of Darliston Pharmacy in Westmoreland, pleaded guilty in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court to obtaining the money by fraudulent means.

Attorney-at-law Linda Wright, who represented the Crown, in outlining the facts of the case said Reynolds deprived the fund of $7 million by falsely pretending that he had filled the prescriptions at his pharmacy and the money was payable to him. 

Wright said the signatures of patients were forged to purport that they were beneficiaries of the drugs.

The offences were committed between March 2006 and December 2009.

Resident Magistrate Lorna Shelly sentenced Reynolds, after hearing a mitigation plea from his attorney, Queen's Counsel Frank Phipps.

Clerk of the Courts Donette Henriques also appeared for the Crown.

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