Overview
- A federal jury in the Southern District of Texas found Barbara Marino guilty on one conspiracy count and four distribution counts after a DEA investigation.
- Marino served as the only prescriber at Angels Clinica, a cash-only storefront in a Houston strip mall, and received more than $400,000 for issuing illegitimate prescriptions.
- Prosecutors said traffickers used crew leaders and runners to recruit patients, fill the prescriptions at Houston pharmacies, and then sell the pills on the street.
- Trial evidence showed she almost always paired an opioid with the muscle relaxer carisoprodol and even gave that mix to a pregnant woman and a patient with severe mental illness.
- Court records attribute about 1.06 million pills to her prescriptions in under a year, including roughly 518,000 hydrocodone, 65,000 oxycodone, and 416,000 carisoprodol.