There was a dark side to this man, Robert Courtney was a con artist and not just your typical con artist, Courtney stole something from his pharmacy customers that trusted him. Courtney was taking away their chance for survival and remission. He was diluting their medications. He was diluting their chemotherapy drugs. This man was getting rich off his unsuspecting patients.
Although Courtney was caught in 2001 and sentenced to thirty years in prison, the families and patients who he sold diluted medications too would feel his con forever. There are over four thousand patients of which seventeen are known to have died because they had been given the diluted chemotherapy. He only received thirty years for being responsible for the death of seventeen people. That comes to a little over a year for each death. He made off with over nineteen million dollars and lost a civil lawsuit for over two billion dollars.
In 1998, an investigation was done because a sales rep noticed that there was a decadency for drugs brought and sold by Courtney. No hard evidence was found and the investigation was closed. The same sales rep mentioned this investigation to a doctor in 2001 and the doctor had the drugs tested that Courtney was distributing. They were found to be diluted and authorities were called. Although Courtney was found guilty, he did appeal the verdict and the sentence. By law, he should have only received twenty-two years and not thirty. The man conned how many people and he thought his freedom was more important than those that died because of his greed.
Courtney did plead not guilty to his crime, but gave his apologies to the families and his patients, but he was still responsible for drug tampering and in public opinion, the death of those patients that died. He lived the high life, paid his back taxes of six hundred thousand dollars, and donated one million dollars to his church supposedly. The people that died cannot live any type of live. Robert Courtney took their lives. Why should he have any freedom in the years to come? He should have received life in prison without parole.
Courtney faced almost two hundred years in prison, but was only sentenced to thirty after plead agreements and he helped the authorities find the patients and other drugs that were diluted. How mighty considerate of him. The drugs tested were over half the way diluted. These patients had cancer and needed these treatments to survive. He played God with their lives and some loss, but he got to donate money to a church. Greed is the only thing that Courtney can say made him do this. He saw the all mighty dollar has his ticket to fortunes. Seventeen patients will never see their loved ones again because they died.
