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# Former Insys VP Pleads Guilty to Racketeering
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/former-insys-vp-pleads-guilty-to-racketeering/
- Published: 2018-11-28T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T00:47:10.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5142914

The Justice Department says **Alec Burlakoff**, former Insys Therapeutics vice president for sales, has pleaded guilty in Massachusetts federal court to participating in a nationwide conspiracy to bribe medical practitioners to unnecessarily prescribe a fentanyl-based pain medication and defraud healthcare insurers. Burlakoff pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, a department [news release](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/former-vice-president-insys-pharmaceuticals-pleads-guilty-racketeering-scheme?ref=fdaweb.com) says.

The government says Burlakoff and his alleged co-conspirators used various methods to bribe medical practitioners in various states, including the Insys Speaker Program. Insys sales representatives targeted and promised medical professionals the opportunity to be paid Insys speakers if they wrote prescriptions for Subsys, the release says. “The more prescriptions written for Subsys, and the higher the dose, the more speaking opportunities were awarded and more fees paid to the clinicians,” it says. “However, the speaking opportunities were merely an excuse for the clinician and friends to have a meal and drinks paid for by Insys, and for the speaker to be paid. As a result, insurers were defrauded by paying reimbursements for Subsys, a more expensive drug than its nearest competitor, and often prescribed when medically unnecessary and inappropriate.”

The charge of RICO conspiracy provides for a sentence of no more than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 or twice the amount of pecuniary gain or loss.