East County
Two East County pharmacists were each fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 500 hours of volunteer work for selling drug samples and drugs with past expiration dates.
Alan Bierman, 41, the owner of Valu-Med Pharmacy in Santee, was placed on three years’ probation by U.S. District Judge Howard Turrentine, who suspended a three-year prison term. Bierman could have received six years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
Leonard Schlein, 31, who owns Rancho San Diego Pharmacy in La Mesa, received five years’ probation and a five-year suspended prison term from U.S. District Judge Leland Nielsen. Schlein could have received an eight-year term and an $11,000 fine.
Both face state board hearings that could revoke their pharmaceutical licenses.
Bierman pleaded guilty Oct. 15 to two counts of introducing misbranded or mislabeled drugs into interstate commerce. Schlein pleaded guilty to mail fraud and introducing mislabeled drugs.
The men were among 48 people indicted in Atlanta in an investigation of sales of diverted and stolen pharmaceutical drugs.
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