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TALLAHASSEE, FL - Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Texas man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted for multiple criminal drug charges, including drug trafficking and organized scheme to defraud. Thomas O. Martino previously pleaded guilty in February to the charges, which were prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution.

The charges stemmed from an extensive three-year investigation that uncovered the massive drug diversion scam run by two South Florida men. Martino, 37, owned and operated TXRX, a Texas wholesale drug company that bought pharmaceuticals worth nearly $50 million from Wilber and Martin Bherviz. Most of the drugs, which were prescriptions used to treat cancer AIDS and other serious conditions, were obtained from unlicensed suppliers in Miami who diverted the prescriptions from Medicaid patients they recruited, including many patients in adult living facilities.

Investigators believe the multimillion-dollar operation was funded by shell corporations owned by the Bhervizes. To launder the money received from the transactions, checks were cashed at numerous South Florida check cashing stores. Wilber Bherviz has also pleaded guilty in the same case and is awaiting sentencing. Martin Bherviz is a fugitive and is believed to have fled to his home country of Nicaragua.

Martino, of Houston, was charged with trafficking in contraband legend drugs; conspiracy to traffic in contraband legend drugs; purchase of legend drugs from an unauthorized person, and organized scheme to defraud. The sentenced was handed down late on Friday by the Honorable Ilona Holmes of the 17th Judicial Circuit. The case was investigated by the Attorney General’s Stone Cold Task Force, consisting of the Office of Statewide Prosecution, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Food and Drug Administration.