Federal prosecutors have accused a prominent Madison pharmacist and a Middleton man of importing and selling counterfeit Viagra and other drugs.
Marla Ahlgrimm, the 55-year-old founder of Women's Health America and a member of the University of Wisconsin Foundation's board of directors, and her alleged coconspirator, 63-year-old Balbir Bhogal, each face two counts of conspiring to deliver counterfeit controlled substances in federal court in New York.
Both were arrested Wednesday in Wisconsin, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Altman said, although she did not know specifically where. Ahlgrimm's attorney, Timothy Edwards, told the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper that Ahlgrimm was taken into custody when she walked into her Madison office and discovered investigators executing a search warrant.
Edwards and Bhogal's attorney, federal defender Erika Bierma, didn't immediately return telephone messages from The Associated Press on Friday morning. The lead prosecutor in New York, Evan Williams, also didn't immediately return a message from the AP.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York last week, an FBI informant who was running an online pharmacy ordered millions of anti-anxiety and appetite suppressants from Ahlgrimm and Bhogal in 2008 and 2009 through e-mails sent to Ahlgrimm - even though the informant didn't hold a federal license to purchase prescription drugs from U.S. manufacturers.
The informant told investigators Ahlgrimm said Bhogal had connections with manufacturers in India.
The drugs arrived directly from India, the complaint said. Some of the tablets were broken and weren't labeled.
Ahlgrimm told the informant to divide payment between her bank account in Green Bay and Bhogal's account in India. The complaint doesn't say how much money was transferred.
This past spring, a second FBI informant ordered pain killers Oxycodone and Hydrocodone and Viagra, Pfizer Inc.'s erectile dysfunction drug, from Bhogal, the complaint said. Bhogal also offered the informant generic Viagra, which isn't legally available in the United States because Pfizer holds an exclusive patent.
Bhogal told the informant to wire money to an account he had in Madison.
Investigators intercepted five packages Bhogal sent to the informant, the complaint said. Two of the packages, both from India, contained about 1,700 counterfeit Oxycodone tablets.
The third package, from an address just a few doors away from Women's Health America, contained about 1,100 unlabeled tablets of what appeared to be generic Viagra. Tests showed the tablets didn't contain the same levels of sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, as the Pfizer brand.
The fourth package, from the same address as Women's Health America, contained nearly 2,050 pills that resembled generic Viagra but also didn't contain the same levels of sildenafil as Pfizer's brand.
The fifth package, this one from China, contained about 2,040 tablets of Viagra marked with the Pfizer logo. Tests showed the tablets weren't Viagra.
The UW Foundation handles fundraising and donations to the university. A telephone message The Associated Press left at the foundation's offices on Friday wasn't immediately returned.