The ex-wife of a pharmaceutical marketer who is on trial in Dallas on federal kickback charges testified Thursday that he put her on the payroll of a Fort Worth pharmacy that paid her extravagantly for work she never did.
Kristin Najarian said her ex-husband, Quintan Cockerell, arranged for her to be listed as an employee of Xpress Compounding, which paid her, in one month alone in 2015, $711,706.47, even though “I wasn’t working there.”
Her testimony for the prosecution on the third day of Cockerell’s trial before a jury in the court of U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer was significant because federal investigators contend that her phony employment by Xpress Compounding was a ruse to mask kickbacks to Cockerell.
Cockerell, identified by prosecutors as a top marketer for Xpress Compounding and a related business, Rxpress Pharmacy, is accused of taking illegal payments from the owners of the two pharmacies to induce physicians to write thousands of expensive, and often fraudulent, prescriptions.
On Wednesday, Scott Schuster, a co-owner of Rxpress Pharmacy and Xpress Compounding, testified that Cockerell made “millions a month” in kickbacks by steering business to Schuster’s pharmacies, both of which specialized in formulating “compounded medicines,” custom-mixed and often exceedingly expensive prescription drugs for patients who, for one reason or another, cannot take mass-produced pharmaceuticals.
The federal charges against Cockerell — conspiracy, receiving kickbacks and money laundering — focus on those prescriptions for which reimbursement was paid by government healthcare programs, notably TRICARE, which insures active and retired members of the armed services, their dependents and their survivors.
TRICARE, like other government health insurance programs, generally forbids payments to third parties for referring prescriptions to a particular pharmacy. However, there’s an exception, or safe harbor, under the law: Pharmacies can compensate their own employees for legitimate efforts that stir up new business.
Enter the former Mrs. Cockerell, according to prosecutors.
Najarian, a 35-year-old advertising graduate of Southern Methodist University, said Cockerell arranged to have her recorded on the books of Xpress Compounding as an employee, even though she had no experience in the pharmacy business; never discussed with anyone her title, job duties or pay; had no onboarding training; never received benefits; had no supervisor, and was never in the pharmacy’s Fort Worth offices.
Asked by prosecutor Jacqueline Zee DerOvanesian, a Justice Department attorney from Miramar, Florida, if she thought of herself as an employee of Xpress Compounding, Najarian said, in a voice barely audible, “I didn’t think so. … I wasn’t working there.”
When she would ask Cockerell about the odd arrangement, she testified, he gave her only vague answers, saying it was better that she be listed on the company’s books than he since he had “a conflict of interest.”
“He didn’t tell me a whole lot,” she said.
Kate Payerle, a Justice Department attorney from Washington, D.C., is prosecuting the case with DerOvanesian.
Cockerell is represented by Chris Knox and Shirley Baccus-Lobel, both of Dallas.
The trial is expected to last at least until late next week.
In April 2015, Najarian said, the pharmacy paid her $711,706.47 for one month, even though “I never did any work to earn that money.” Like other payments to her from Xpress Compounding — about $2.5 million in total, according to the government — the money went into accounts jointly held by her and Cockerell, she testified.
In May 2015, she said, Cockerell wrote a personal check for $292,520.05 from their joint checking account to Lamborghini of Dallas for a Lamborghini that was delivered to their Highland Park home — much to her surprise.
Her then-husband, she said, never told her he was buying the luxury sports car, or that it was registered in her name.
After the Fort Worth pharmacies — and Cockerell’s income — collapsed amid a federal grand jury investigation, the couple moved with their young daughter to Southern California, where she is from, Najarian testified.
She and Cockerell divorced in the summer of 2022, according to records of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.