A physician in Ohio was sentenced to spend two years in jail for his role in distributing opioids illegally. On February 21 of 2020, Morris Brown, a 73-year-old doctor of Dayton, Ohio, pleaded guilty to unlawful distribution of controlled substances.
He was charged in April of 2019 with four other defendants — 50-year-old Mahmoud Rifai from Detroit, Michigan; 48-year-old Yohannes Tinsae from Beavercreek, Ohio; 44-year-old Mahmoud Elmiari from Bellbrook, Ohio; and 50-year-old Ismail Abuhanieh from Phoenix, Arizona.
Those defendants all received charges of agreeing to obtained the controlled substances by misrepresenting or defrauding Dayton Pharmacy. That company leased a building that was owned by Tinsae, Elmiari, Abuhanieh and Brown.
Those three, other than Brown, were already sentenced after they made guilty pleas in the case. Rifai, meanwhile, has an active warrant for his arrest for his role in this case.
The ARPO Strike Force was a major part of this case. The force operates out of 10 districts and has charged more than 85 defendants who, together, are alleged to have distributed roughly 65 million dangerous pills illegally.