DETROIT- – A Grosse Pointe Woods doctor has been convicted of failing to declare and pay taxes on income from illegally selling prescriptions, and of failing to declare and pay taxes on income received from corporations he controlled, which were registered in the names of others.
Peter Nwoke, 50, was convicted on charges related to the operation of his medical practice, Divine Medical Care and Divine Medical Services.
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The practice primarily worked with homebound Medicare patients in Detroit.
Authorities say to avoid paying taxes, Nwoke set up two other businesses, City Medical and Divine Medical Center, both of which he placed in others’ names.
Nwoke controlled the bank accounts and collected profits from both businesses.
These profits were not reported as income and were not subject to tax.
Nwoke was also said to have sold controlled substance prescriptions for highly addictive opioids.
The prescriptions were said to have been filled by purchasers and sold on the street market.
Income from these transactions was deposited into 20 different bank accounts and was neither declared nor taxed.
According to trial evidence, Nwoke underreported his taxable income in 2011, 2012, and 2013 by more than $2 million.
His underreported taxes totaled more than $725,000.
Nwoke is said to have paid $29,424 in taxes when he should have paid $849,088.
During that time, Nwoke prescribed over 2.8 million dosage units of prescription drug-controlled substances and deposited over $1.4 million from the sales into multiple accounts.
After one of his confederates was raided by the FBI, Nwoke told him, “They’ll never get me, because I keep my paperwork together.”
Nwoke is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 10.
Sentencing will be determined after consideration of the sentencing guidelines.
Nwoke has three pending counts of false statement/perjury.
The perjury charges are separate from the tax charges due to a mistrial and will be scheduled for trial at a later date.
The investigation was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service, with assistance from many other federal agencies.