U.S. District Judge Michael Shea approved a Jan. 17 agreement between federal prosecutors and attorneys for Heather Alfonso that delays her sentencing another six months, until July 2017. Alfonso was charged in June 2015 with accepting $83,000 in kickbacks from Insys Therapeutics in exchange for her high prescribing of the drug Subsys.
In arguing for the new sentencing delay, the U.S. attorney’s office in Connecticut said Alfonso “continues to cooperate in (investigations in) several federal and state jurisdictions, including the District of Connecticut.” A previous story by C-HIT reported on prior sentencing delays because she was cooperating in an ongoing federal probe.
Alfonso, who was formerly employed as an advanced practice registered nurse at the Comprehensive Pain and Headache Treatment Center, is the only Connecticut medical provider charged in the Insys investigation.
In December, six top executives and managers of Arizona-based Insys were indicted on charges they led a nationwide conspiracy to bribe doctors and nurses to prescribe Subsys, which is approved only for treating cancer patients suffering episodes of breakthrough pain. In exchange for bribes and kickbacks, the practitioners wrote large numbers of prescriptions for patients, most of whom were not diagnosed with cancer, the indictments allege.
