Two more men have been indicted in a continuing federal investigation into an alleged Jacksonville healthcare fraud scheme involving more than 20,000 fraudulent claims for HIV medication resulting in $51 million in payments, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of more than $37 million from the two men in connection with alleged money laundering, while three others have pleaded guilty already, U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe said at a Thursday news conference.
The latest indictments were handed down against Charles Bernard Griffin, who operated a pharmacy First Coast Community Development, and St. Johns County accountant Ethelbert Chinenye Nwangbo, who both await trial, Kehoe said.
Pharmacist Albert Dwayne Chester, marketer Jonathan Gholston and nurse practitioner Rashawn Jones were previously charged and pleaded guilty, he said.
The alleged scheme was set up to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and affordable healthcare insurers, and occured from 2023 through late 2025, Kehoe said. What happened is that prescriptions for HIV post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, were arranged for people who did not need the medication. None were seen by medical professionals, Kehoe said.
“In other words, all of these prescriptions, and there were well over 20,000 of them, were issued when there was no medical-patient relationship with the individuals who received these medications,” Kehoe said.
“The whole idea that they set up with Gholston and Griffin was to recruit people by offering them government-sponsored cell phones,” Kehoe said. ” … They got people in using these cell phones. Then Gholston’s company was paid $200 per referral.”
Investigation by the FBI, IRS and other federal agencies determined that the scheme started in November 2023 when a company called Smooth Vision Marketing was brought in to recruit Medicare and Medicaid affordable care beneficiaries to get the PEP drugs. The people were recruited through Griffin’s pharmacy, with marketers collecting personal and insurance information through questionnaires, prosecutors said.
Kehoe said Griffin’s pharmacy paid Gholston’s marketing company $200 for each referral that resulted in an insurance payment; Gholston then allegedly paid marketers $50 per prescription.
Chester, 61, generated the prescriptions, and Jones signed orders without speaking to anyone who got the medication.
“And what did they tell the agents? They never asked for it; they never wanted it,” Kehoe said. “But oftentimes, it was delivered to them.”
These PEPs are “very expensive drugs,” costing about $4,000 per month, Kehoe said. And he said that the scheme operated while giving medications to people who “did not need it, and putting their lives at risk.”
“It’s an illegal kickback because you cannot pay money back to somebody on a prescription based on whether or not it’s paid,” Kehoe said. “You pay a marketer a flat fee for the work that he is doing. And whether or not that prescription is going through, your payment has to be set.”
Medicare losses totalled about $11.5 million, while Medicaid losses were about $12.5 million, Kehoe said. Proceeds from the fraud saw Griffin receive about $14 million, with $5 million for Chester. Gholston netted about $2 million, while Jones was paid more than $400,000.
Such fraud schemes divert scarce taxpayer funds from Medicare and Medicaid, Inspector General’s Office Agent-in-Charge Isaac Bledsoe said on Thursday.
“(Those are) Precious safety net resources meant for medically necessary health services for eligible enrollees,” he said. “Simply put, healthcare fraud undermines both the integrity of federal healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid and the trust that the American public places in our entire healthcare system.”
So far, investigators have seized eight properties and six vehicles from the men accused in the scheme.
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