Wichita pharmacist sentenced for unlawfully dispensing opioids

A Wichita pharmacist was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in federal prison Wednesday for unlawfully dispensing opioids and health care fraud in a case that already landed a doctor a life sentence.

Ebube Otuonye, 47, of Bel Aire, owned and operated the now shuttered Neighborhood Pharmacy at 810 E. 21st, in Wichita. Otuonye filled opioid prescriptions prescribed by Steven R. Henson that other pharmacists wouldn’t, not even ones at his business, court records show.

Henson is serving a life sentence.

One man, Nicholas McGovern, died in July 2015 after overdosing on a mix of of alprazolam and methadone that Henson had prescribed.

In court filings, Otuonye denied there was a conspiracy and said he even met with Henson in person to ensure he was a legitimate doctor rather than someone “selling prescriptions out of a trunk.”

Otuonye was charged four months after Henson’s conviction.

Prosecutors say Otuonye ignored warning signs, which included copious opioid prescriptions from the same doctor, customers paying cash instead of using insurance and patients from the same family filling identical prescriptions.

Otuonye also charged more than other pharmacies for those prescriptions.

In addition, Otuonye required Henson’s patients to fill three non-narcotic prescriptions for every narcotic script they brought in, prosecutors said.

In all Otuonye dispensed 21,681 oxycodone tablets, 48,683 methadone tablets, 18,049 hydromorphone tablets and 7,890 alprazolam pills.