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A nurse practitioner in Stockton is being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly running a nationwide scheme to sell illegal opioid prescriptions for cash, acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith announced this week.
Joan Rubinger is accused of providing more than 900 illegitimate prescriptions to customers around the country.
The civil complaint alleges that between Nov. 1, 2019 and June 17, 2024, Rubinger went from city to city proving a range of intravenous flushes to prescriptions for controlled substances. The DOJ alleges that no physician supervised Rubinger and she met her customers in places like hotel rooms.
According to the complaint, Rubinger sold the prescriptions for cash using an encrypted text messaging system.
“The complaint alleges that Rubinger provided her customers with price lists that invited them to select their own prescriptions from a menu of highly addictive drugs intended to treat a wide variety of medical conditions,” said the DOJ.
These drugs included Oxycodone, Percocet, Xanax, and Adderall, which were allegedly meted out without any examination or medical record paper trail. Her prices ranged from $100 to $250 per prescription and she allegedly used Venmo to complete the transactions.
Rubinger is also accused of creating multiple prescriptions in the names of customers’ friends and family in order to disguise the amount of drugs that she was signing off on, allowing her customers to get the drugs under false names.
Her customers either used the drugs themselves or sold them on the street, the DOJ alleges.
Rubinger had a document she called “THE RULES” which contained specific instructions for each customer that she told them would “minimize the attention we attract from the DEA,” the government alleges.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA, suspended Rubinger’s authorization to dispense controlled substances in June 2024, according to the complaint.
“Rubinger told customers they were required to pay her for prescriptions in advance because, ‘just like at McDonald’s, you gotta pay for your burger before they hand it to you,’“ the DOJ said.
The government is asking for civil penalties to be lobbed against Rubinger if they prevail and that she be barred from dispensing controlled substances.
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