Clinic owner who illegally sold painkillers with Spring Grove doctor sentenced to 6 years

The owner of Midtown Medical Center in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood was sentenced to six years in federal prison Thursday.

Mohammed Shariff, 68, of Lincolnwood, worked with Dr. Theodore Galvani, a Spring Grove resident, to prescribe more than two kilograms of oxycodone, more than 595,000 hydrocodone pills and more than 190,000 Xanax pills to people who didn't have a medical need for the drugs, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office.

Galvani pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges and is still awaiting sentencing.

The two worked over a 13-month period from February 2012 to March 2013 and made $584,188 during that time, according to the news release.

Last year, the 68-year-old Shariff pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to knowingly dispense controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.

Galvani would meet with more than 70 patients a day, leading to lines stretching out the clinic door, according to the release.

Shariff also attempted to carry out a separate fraud scheme in May 2016 involving a home health care company he owned, authorities said. He offered to pay a physician $500 each time the doctor certified a patient with Medicare as eligible for home health care and referred the patient to Elgin-based Home Health Resource LLC, according to the release.

The physician, however, was cooperating with law enforcement and the conversation was recorded, authorities said.