Two owners of a pharmaceutical wholesale company were sentenced Friday to a total of 38 years in prison for orchestrating a complex, nationwide drug diversion scheme that harmed vulnerable HIV-positive patients, placed countless others at risk, and corrupted the supply chain for prescription drugs in the United States.
“Patrick and Charles Boyd did not just commit fraud and cost taxpayers millions of dollars, they preyed upon some of the most vulnerable members of our society: HIV patients who depend on life-saving treatments to manage their disease,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Fraud schemes like this one undermine the integrity of our supply chain for necessary prescription drugs. These defendants will rightly spend years in prison for their reprehensible conduct, which took advantage of people for illicit profit. This case is another example of how the Criminal Division, our United States Attorney partner in the Southern District of Florida, and law enforcement will pursue and seek convictions of those who defraud our systems, endanger our citizens, and seek to line their pockets with fraud proceeds.”
“These defendants treated life-saving HIV medication like street contraband,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. “They bought drugs off the street from black-market suppliers, shipped them in dirty boxes and discarded packaging, falsified paperwork, and pushed those medications back into the legitimate pharmaceutical supply chain. The consequences were real. HIV patients received bottles containing the wrong drugs, and at least one patient lost consciousness after ingesting medication that should never have been in that bottle. As a former military prosecutor, federal prosecutor, and trial judge, I have seen how greed can drive dangerous schemes. When criminals gamble with patient safety for profit, federal prison is the result.”
“Friday’s sentence underscores the extreme danger these defendants created,” said Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott J. Lampert of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS‑OIG). “They took life‑threatening actions that showed an alarming disregard for human life in service of nothing more than a payday. Their criminal scheme endangered vulnerable patients, put entire communities at risk, and undermined the integrity of Medicare and Medicaid. HHS‑OIG will continue working with our law enforcement partners — and using every tool in our arsenal — to pursue and dismantle illegal black‑market rings that seek to corrupt the nation’s drug supply and exploit taxpayer‑funded health care programs.”
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, brothers Patrick Boyd, 47, and Charles Boyd, 43, of Easton, Maryland, founded and owned Safe Chain Solutions, a wholesale distributor of pharmaceutical medications located in Maryland. Charles Boyd was the CEO, while Patrick Boyd served as a Managing Partner who oversaw the company’s sales division. The evidence presented at trial showed that Patrick and Charles Boyd conspired with at least five black-market suppliers to purchase HIV drugs obtained through patient “buyback schemes” at steep discounts. One of their suppliers testified at trial that he purchased HIV drugs from patients on the street, removed the original prescription labels, and packaged the bottles in cardboard boxes — sometimes scavenged from trash on pick-up days — before shipping them to the defendants. On one occasion, this supplier used a diaper box he found on the street to ship the drugs. Many of these bottles were dirty, unsealed, and showed obvious signs they had previously been dispensed, such as the two depicted below:
Trial evidence showed that pharmacies complained to Safe Chain Solutions about their illicit conduct. For example, pharmacies reported to Safe Chain Solutions that they received bottles with entirely different drugs in them as early as August 2020.
In another documented complaint, one of their pharmacy customers sent the defendants a photo of the condition in which he received HIV drugs from them:
The customer informed Patrick and Charles Boyd that these bottles of HIV drugs did not meet “safety standards . . . and may present risk for our patients” and returned the drugs.
Evidence admitted at trial included an article shared between the defendants discussing these serious risks, just days before the customer complained. According to the article, “The schemes hurt individuals with HIV, cost taxpayers millions of dollars and drive up the viral load in communities, exposing others to the illness and spoiling the city and state’s mission to drive the number of new HIV diagnoses to zero.”
Despite these early complaints, Patrick and Charles Boyd continued buying cheap, diverted HIV drugs from the same black-market suppliers for many months, and continued selling the drugs to pharmacies along with falsified paperwork designed to fool their customers and regulatory agencies.
A patient who received a bottle of prescribed HIV medication sold to a pharmacy by the defendants testified at trial that Seroquel, an anti-psychotic drug, was actually in his bottle. He testified that he unwittingly ingested the Seroquel and lost consciousness for 24 hours. Evidence at trial established that missing even a single dose of HIV medication can increase a patient’s viral load and heighten community transmission risk in areas with high HIV infection rates. There was at least one additional documented complaint where another HIV patient unwittingly ingested a different drug that was in his bottle.
The trial evidence also established the many elaborate steps Patrick and Charles Boyd took to conceal their criminal conduct from detection. They worked with the black-market suppliers behind the back of their own Director of Compliance, who testified that she repeatedly raised concerns throughout the conspiracy but was ignored. They also enlisted attorneys as part of their cover-up. One of those attorneys testified at trial, describing how the Boyd brothers concealed and misrepresented material information while seeking legal advice about pharmacy complaints and reporting obligations to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to the evidence, the defendants failed to report numerous incidents to the FDA involving pharmacies that had received incorrect or tampered medications.
Between April 2020 and September 2021, Patrick and Charles Boyd bought and resold more than 28,000 bottles of these black-market HIV drugs. They paid more than $92.8 million for the drugs, which they sold to pharmacies for a profit. Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurers were billed and paid for these illicit drugs.
In October 2025, Patrick and Charles Boyd were convicted at trial of conspiracy to introduce misbranded drugs into interstate commerce; conspiracy to traffic in medical products with false documentation; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; two counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce; and two counts of wire fraud. Patrick Boyd was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Charles Boyd was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In addition to the prison sentences, the defendants were ordered to pay $21,850,000 in forfeiture.
A third defendant, Adam Brosius, previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud with the Boyds and was sentenced to 97 months in prison in connection with his role in the scheme.
HHS-OIG and FBI investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jacqueline Zee DerOvanesian and Alexander Thor Pogozelski for the Southern District of Florida, with the assistance of Assistant Chief James V. Hayes of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Grosnoff for the Southern District of Florida handled asset forfeiture.
The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. Since March 2007, this program, currently comprised of eight strike forces operating in federal districts across the country, has charged more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes. More information can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.
