A Stockton nurse practitioner who is accused of running a nationwide scheme to sell illegal opioid prescriptions for cash is facing a civil lawsuit by federal prosecutors in Sacramento.
In the lawsuit filed on Jan. 8 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith said Joan Rubinger traveled the country and sold drugs such as Oxycodone, Percocet, Xanax, and Adderall to customers who paid with cash or on Venmo.
Between Nov. 1, 2019 and June 17, 2024, Rubinger provided more than 900 illegitimate prescriptions to customers who she communicated with during brief conversations over the encrypted messaging application Telegram, according to court documents.
Federal prosecutors accuse Rubinger of “providing a range of services from intravenous flushes to prescriptions for controlled substances,” and said her “unorthodox practice” consisted of her, a personal assistant, and a person who managed billing.
“No licensed physician supervises Rubinger, and no licensed physician is associated with, or employed by, her practice,” Beckwith said Monday in a statement. “She usually met customers in non-medical environments, such as hotel rooms, without access to necessary diagnostic tools, proper medical records, or any other infrastructure required to treat chronic pain.”
Rubinger would send her customers a menu of highly addictive drugs intended to treat a wide variety of medical conditions, according to the complaint. The 20-page document alleges Rubinger told her customers they were required to pay her for prescriptions in advance because “just like at McDonald’s, you gotta pay for your burger before they hand it to you.”
Once customers paid Rubinger, she allegedly issued the requested prescriptions without conducting any examination or creating any medical records.
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To conceal the excessive quantities of drugs that she prescribed to her customers, the complaint alleges that Rubinger would issue prescriptions in the names of the customers’ friends and family members, many of whom did not consent to participate in the scheme.
“Many of Rubinger’s customers allegedly abused the drugs or resold them on the street,” Beckwith said.
The lawsuit is asking the court to prohibit Rubinger from prescribing controlled substances and to impose civil penalties on the nurse practitioner for her conduct.
Record reporter Hannah Workman covers news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at hworkman@recordnet.com or on Twitter @byhannahworkman. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: DOJ sues Stockton nurse to stop sale of illegal opioid prescriptions