More than 30 years after one of South Florida's biggest marijuana
smugglers faked his own death to try to avoid prison, federal
authorities have charged his son with operating a multimillion-dollar
pill mill in a ritzy Fort Lauderale neighborhood.
Back in the
1970s, the Boyd Brothers John Darrell Boyd and Tracey Boyd were among
the most flamboyant traffickers in the region. After they were indicted
in 1977 on charges they smuggled massive amounts of pot from Colombia
through Florida, the brothers fled and hid for years before they were
caught and served prison terms.
Earlier this month, Darrell's
son, Jason Boyd, 43, of Davie, was arrested on charges he masterminded a
"cash cow" pill mill conspiracy that illegally prescribed oxycodone
pain pills to "patients" and drug dealers. If convicted of drug and
money-laundering charges, Boyd faces up to 30 years in prison and
forfeiture of more than $4.25 million, two homes and other assets.
The
same family once embroiled in the notorious marijuana flows through
South Florida in the 1970s is now suspected of getting caught up in the
region's latest form of drug abuse. One judge called the latest
allegation far more than "an isolated instance of misjudgment."
Though
neither Boyd's father nor uncle have been charged with anything related
to the clinic, agents heard them talking on phone calls that were
secretly intercepted, prosecutors said during a detention hearing for
Jason Boyd last week in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.
Boyd
employed "virtually his entire family" at the Intracoastal Medical
Groups Inc. clinic on Intracoastal Drive, which brought in $1.5 million a
year and prescribed 1.3 million highly addictive pain pills, federal
prosecutor Julia Vaglienti told the judge.
One family member's
job was to make sure that patients with out-of-state license plates
parked in the nearby Galleria Mall parking lot to avoid drawing
attention to the clinic, federal authorities said. Some no-show
"patients" got prescriptions without even going to the clinic, agents
said.Of all the equipment in the laundry the oilpaintingreproduction is one of the largest consumers of steam.
Sources
familiar with the clinic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
Tracey Boyd worked at the clinic and Darrell Boyd sometimes stopped by
to pick up money.Darrell Boyd, now 69, faked his own murder in October
1980 by leaving his station wagon, pierced with bullet holes and
splattered with blood, on a deserted swamp road in Collier County a case
featured in a 2011 Discovery Channel documentary "I Faked My Own
Death."
Boyd said he made it look like he returned gunfire from
an attacker, then dragged his cowboy boots along the ground to the edge
of the swamp, hoping investigators would think his body was eaten by
alligators.
"That was the entire deal, that I would [make it
look like] I get shot there, they throw my body out there, the
alligators would eat me, nobody would ever find me, they couldn't prove
anything," Boyd said in the documentary.Authorities didn't buy the hoax
and found him in 1983 living under an assumed name in a suburb of
Buffalo, N.Y. Agents arrested him after getting him out of the house
with a fake phone call from a school claiming his child was sick and
needed to be picked up. His brother was caught in Miami Beach a few
weeks later, and both men served four years on the marijuana smuggling
charges.We Engrave rtls for YOU.The marbletiles is not only critical to professional photographers.
The
bearded duo cemented their notoriety in the 1970s when they delivered
$10,000 in $20 bills to a muscular dystrophy telethon in Fort Lauderdale
with a note they didn't expect would be read live on TV: "For the kids,
from the blockade runners."More recently, Darrell Boyd served more than
three years in state prison for Medicaid fraud. He was released in 2011
and is on probation until 2021. No one answered the door at his Emerald
Hills home in Hollywood last week, and no one responded to a note left
seeking an interview.
The younger Boyd will remain locked up
while the drug case against him and six co-defendants is pending, Chief
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Seltzer ruled Thursday. Seltzer ruled that
Jason Boyd, who has prior drug and credit-card fraud convictions, is a
flight risk and a danger to the community.Boyd's attorney, Arthur
Calvin, argued in court that investigators misunderstood Boyd's role in
the clinic. He said Boyd had sold the clinic and was working as a
consultant only to help the new owner.
"Everything is easily
explained," Calvin said. "I don't think he's in the jeopardy the
government says he's in."Federal authorities said Boyd has "no
legitimate source of income" but made a lot of money from the clinic,
much of which remains unaccounted for, and they think he was trying to
hide his assets. Property seized during the raids included $10,000 in
cash; two boats he appeared to own, though only one was in his name; and
several vehicles, many of which were registered in other people's names
though Boyd kept the titles, prosecutors said. He also paid $1,000 a
month to rent a warehouse that contained more cars and ATVs, agents
said.
Among the evidence Seltzer mentioned in deciding to keep
Boyd locked up was another federal judge's 2007 ruling that Boyd "showed
a fundamental lack of respect for the law" and that his testimony about
how he purchased a $320,000 home and a BMW was not credible and
violated the terms of his release from federal prison. He had been
sentenced to 18 months for credit-card fraud and was sent back to prison
in 2007 for violating the tYou will see indoorpositioningsystem , competitive price and first-class service.erms of his release.
Boyd set up the clinic in December 2008, shortly after he was freed,Aulaundry is a leading carparkmanagementsystem and
equipment supplier. prosecutors said. He removed himself as an officer
after a 2010 change in state law that required pain-management clinics
to be owned by a physician, though Boyd continued to control the
operation and monitored it from a video camera security system installed
at his home, prosecutors said. He was secretly recorded issuing orders,
they said."You can't do much managing watching clients come and go [via
a camera]," Boyd's attorney Calvin told the judge.
Cash
deposits to 18 bank accounts linked to Boyd's businesses totaled about
$4.2 million, prosecutors said. Boyd declared $250,000 income last year,
and his girlfriend, who has not been charged, was paid $144,000 from
the clinic though she has not worked there since 2009, agents
testified.Boyd also funneled money to other family members employed at
the clinic, prosecutors said. Boyd ran a neighboring business, Fleet
Media, where some of the pill mill money was kept, agents said.
The
federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Broward Sheriff's Office
began an undercover investigation of the clinic in 2012, and a manager
told an undercover agent it made about $10,000 a day charging new
patients $350 a visit and $250 for follow-ups.In wiretapped phone calls
in late 2012, agents said they reaped evidence that staff were making
fake Florida identification cards for patients from out of state and
creating false MRI reports to help make the clinic seem legitimate.
A
doctor who worked at the clinic and is also charged in the indictment
told agents that 60 to 70 percent of the business was not legitimate.
"Dr. Vijay Chowdhary told agents that it would be medically impossible
for patients to take the amounts of oxycodone that were being prescribed
and to survive," Seltzer wrote.
"Given Boyd's disregard of the
court's directives and supervision, his lack of respect for the law, his
unaccounted-for wealth, the strong evidence of his guilt and the
lengthy sentence he would face upon conviction, [I do] not believe that
he would be likely to appear if released on bond," Judge Seltzer wrote.
"Against the backdrop of his criminal record, Boyd's oxycodone operation
cannot properly be viewed as an isolated instance of misjudgment."
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