Doctor With Orland Park Clinic Pleads Guilty to Illegal Sale of Diet Pills

A Tinley Park doctor with a clinic in Orland Park pleaded guilty last week to selling millions of diet pills illegally—and hiding nearly $2 million in income from the Internal Revenue Service, the Chicago Tribune reports. 

Rakesh Anand, 57, and his wife, Meena, 53, owned Doctors Weight Loss Clinics in Tinley Park, Orland Park and Merrillville, Ind. Within those clinics, they dispensed pills containing phentermine and phendimetrazine upon request, without screening patients seeking the powerful appetite-suppressing drugs for heart ailments or other health conditions, according to a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Rakesh Anand pleaded guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, and his wife Meena pleaded guilty to a single count of tax evasion, according to the report.

Prosecutors said that from 2005 to 2010, Anand and a second doctor, Dinesh Sariya, sold 1 million phendimetrazine pills and 3 million phentermine pills, with a 30-day supply going for $65, according to court records. From 2002 to 2010, the Anands grossed more than $5 million, prosecutors said.

From 2005 to 2008, the couple underreported their income by nearly $2 million, prosecutors said.

The couple will be sentenced on two counts each, with maximum sentences of four and half years for Rakesh Anand and three years for Meena. The couple also has agreed to pay $745,872 to the IRS and forfeit $4.45 million in additional funds that were frozen or seized by the government during the investigation, according to the report.

For more information, read the Chicago Tribune report. 

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