A Tennessee couple at the helm of a prescription pharmacy scheme that defrauded the Pentagon’s health program of more than $65 million and also ensnared service members will serve time and must pay back the federal government, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Jimmy Collins, 59, and Ashley Collins, 37, of Birchwood, Tennessee, must pay $65,679,512.71 in restitution to the Defense Health Agency and Tricare. Jimmy Collins was sentenced to 10 years in prison — the maximum he could have received for the charge of receipt of illegal remuneration — while Ashley Collins will serve 18 months in home confinement for conspiracy.
From 2014 to May 2015, the Collinses ran a medical clinic that used a network of doctors and a nurse practitioner to recruit service members and other Tricare beneficiaries to receive specialty medications they didn’t need in return for kickbacks.