Federal grand jury in Savannah Georgia indicts Atlanta couple for illegal internet drug sales
We've seen this before.
A federal grand jury in Savannah recently indicted Christian and Jennifer Navoy, a couple from Roswell, Georgia, on illegal distribution of controlled substances through the internet.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has the story.
We are currently representing a doctor who is being charged with a similar offense for his involvement in an internet medicine business operated out of Atlanta. I discussed the case in a previous post.
In the Atlanta case, our client reviewed medical information submitted by patients through an online questionnaire. It was the same information they would have had to provide if they made a personal visit to the doctor's office; it just saved them time and money to do it this way. The drugs involved in our case are non-narcotic drugs like Viagra and weight loss medication, some of the same drugs involved in the Savannah case.
One of the doctors in the Atlanta case has already gone to trial. The jury deadlocked and could not reach a decision. A retrial for this doctor, and any other defendant left in the case, is set for this Fall.
The government is not guaranteed a conviction in this type of case. We think juries will require more evidence than just the fact that someone used the internet to order drugs. Ultimately, the jury's verdict may depend on whether there was a doctor involved, and whether the doctor had sufficient information available to determine the person's need for the medication he ordered. Some jurors may find it difficult to convict a doctor for doing the same thing he would have done if the person had made an appointment to see him at the office.
