Opinion ID: 2982513
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Viral Thaker

Text: Viral Thaker concedes on appeal that the “Government through its witness Arpit Patel established that Viral Thaker was a pharmacist engaged in the illegal practices instituted by Babubhai Patel on a consistent basis.” Appellant’s Br., Doc. 54 Page ID 15 (citing R. 907 Page ID 6897–98). The trial transcript citation Thaker provided confirms that Arpit Patel testified before the jury that Thaker was his supervisor at Glendale Pharmacy, Babubhai Patel was Thaker’s supervisor, Thaker engaged in fraudulent practices multiple times by billing for medications that were not dispensed to patients, and the billed-but-not-dispensed medications were stored in plastic totes and eventually returned to the supplier by Chetan Gujarathi. Thaker’s only argument is that Arpit Patel could not provide an answer when asked on cross-examination why the number of controlled substance prescriptions filled at the Glendale Pharmacy doubled during the six weeks Thaker was out of the country. In light of Thaker’s concession on appeal that the government proved him guilty of the conspiracy counts, we need not detail the government’s evidence against him at length. It is enough to say that the government played a videotape for the jury depicting Thaker engaged in filling illegal controlled substance prescriptions for undercover agents and a confidential informant; billing the undercover agents’ Blue Cross/Blue Shield cards for those prescriptions as well as for other non-controlled drugs that were not dispensed; and providing Cialis pills to the -23- Nos. 13-1164/1173/1182/1215/1216 United States v. Babubhai Patel, et al. agents without a prescription. Other proof against Thaker included both his wiretapped conversations with Babubhai Patel and the testimony of Arpit Patel, Chetan Gujarathi, and police officer Thomas Wixon, who conducted a traffic stop of a “patient” recruiter, Leodis Elliott, and recovered from his car medications that Thaker had illegally dispensed. Thaker’s sufficiency challenge fails, and we affirm his convictions. Thaker waived any challenge to his convictions for health care fraud (counts 10–11) and unlawful distribution of controlled substances (counts 30–31) by failing to address them in his appellate brief. See United States v. Archibald, 589 F.3d 289, 298 n.7 (6th Cir. 2009).