South Florida owner of $15M pill mill operation sentenced to 14 years in prison

A South Florida man who ran a $15 million pill mill operation that sold hundreds of thousands of addictive painkillers to drug dealers and addicts was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in federal prison.

Joel Shumrak, 67, of Boca Raton, has been locked up since June when federal agents raided his Broken Sound home and his Fort Lauderdale clinic, Pain Center of Broward, in the 5400 block of North Federal Highway.

Prosecutors have already seized more than $8 million Shumrak stashed in dozens of bank accounts and life insurance policies. He is required to forfeit an additional $7 million under the terms of his plea agreement.

Investigators said he hid money in offshore accounts on the Caribbean island, Nevis, and on the island Republic of Cyprus in the Mediterranean.

Shumrak was sentenced in London, Ky., the region where many of the drugs he sold were distributed on the streets.

Prosecutors said his South Florida-based drug conspiracy — which also involved a clinic he owned in Tucker, Ga. — illegally supplied more than 1 million pills to addicts in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and other states.

Shumrak’s Fort Lauderdale clinic was frequently picketed by anti-drug activists, including STOPP Now (Stop the Organized Pill Pushers Now).

And he was a longtime informal spokesman for what he called South Florida’s pain management community and clinics.

Prosecutors called them pill mills where doctors wrote prescriptions for addictive oxycodone pain pills and anti-anxiety medication without doing appropriate medical examinations.

South Florida’s reputation as a pill mill destination for drug dealers and addicts, some of whom drove hundreds of miles from Appalachia, has diminished in recent years as federal and state authorities cracked down.

“Patients” were lured by ads and billboards and law enforcement, dealers and addicts began calling the route to South Florida the Oxy Highway or the Oxy Express. Shumrak required customers to pay in cash or by pre-paid debit cards and did not accept insurance, according to court records

Shumrak pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to distribute prescription drugs and laundering money. Authorities said he operated the conspiracy, with the help of a Georgia-based doctor and others, between June 2008 and May 2014.

When Shumrak was first arrested, prosecutors called his wife and adult children “alleged co-conspirators” but no charges were filed.

South Florida man ran $15M pill mill that supplied Kentucky drug dealers, feds say
South Florida man ran $15M pill mill that supplied Kentucky drug dealers, feds say
His wife, Amy Shumrak, who teaches science at Lyons Creek Middle School in Coconut Creek, was allowed to keep the couple’s Boca Raton home and her retirement savings under the terms of her husband’s plea agreement.

In a letter to the sentencing judge, Amy Shumrak wrote that she was shocked by her husband’s criminal conduct. After his arrest, she wrote, her husband donated his medical equipment to the Palm Springs Baptist Church in Lake Worth for use in a primary care clinic for people with no insurance.

Joel Shumrak’s lawyer, Bernard Cassidy, wrote in court records that Shumrak has had a difficult time in custody and suffers from several medical problems.

“Although the defendant has not had an addiction to drugs or alcohol in decades, [he] does have a personality that tends toward addiction; the crimes that led him to this sentencing were brought on in part due to his compulsion toward money, obtaining it, shielding it from others,” Cassidy wrote. “[He] is concerned that when he is eventually released and destitute, he will return to the previous drug or alcohol addiction and believes that some treatment … will be helpful in his rehabilitation.”

The sentencing judge agreed Thursday to recommend that Shumrak attend a substance abuse program in prison.