All language subtitles for American Greed s10e11 Pain Killer Profits.eng

In this episode of American Greed, Chris
and Jeff George, twin brothers, say

they help patients manage pain.

But all they do is push pills, deadly
addictive pills.

Running the largest pill mill in the U
.S., the twins rake in $40 million in

just over two years.

They had so much cash in these clinics,
they kept the cash in garbage bags.

Convinced it's all legal, Chris even
brings his wife into the game.

I trusted him.

I shouldn't have. And the patients pay
not just with money, but also with their

lives. They gave him two deadly pills
that were even more deadly when they

combined. They did it on purpose, and it
killed someone.

Wellington, Florida, in Palm Beach
County, is known for horse shows and

tournaments and soaring property values.

It is here where twin brothers Chris and
Jeff George start life in the lap of

luxury. Their father, John George, owns
a hugely successful home building

business and gives his boys all they
could ever need.

He is proud of them. Chris and Jeff are
both very, very intelligent. They

weren't. great students because they
played too much. And they're both very,

how do you say, entrepreneurial.

And that's what will get them in
trouble.

From the start, the George twins make
their own rules and like to take

Did I see him as overly mischievous?

Yes. They certainly pushed the envelope
as they were children.

Nothing...

Terribly bad, but certainly mischievous,
yeah.

But Palm Beach County Sheriff reports
show more serious problems.

Arrests for aggravated assault,
possession of stolen property, domestic

violence. Jeff got kicked out of a
number of schools in high school, and

were troublemakers.

At first, the twins are into football
and wrestling, and then move into

bodybuilding that leads to steroids. And
after graduation?

One more arrest.

Chris was arrested in his early 20s for
receiving anabolic steroids

and actually received an eight -month
prison sentence.

Now a convicted felon, Chris goes to
work for his father and learns how to

business. He also spends time at strip
clubs where he meets a dancer named

Diana, his future wife.

At that time, I thought he was...

Completely pathetic.

Just like a lost young kid, you know,
that really didn't know who he was, what

direction he was going in, and hungry
for attention.

Two years later, the real estate market
in Florida crashes.

Chris's future is up for grabs.

He and Diana move in with Jeff, who is
still causing trouble.

Now he is in an open battle with his
neighbors over his truck, a monster

that he parks illegally in his front
yard.

When he is fined more than $15 ,000, he
simply ignores the tickets.

He didn't care. He basically sort of
lived a life of going to the gym, going

strip clubs, working, and he lived like
a slob.

At this point, Jeff is running his own
company, South Beach Rejuvenation, an

online business that sells steroids.

But Jeff and Chris soon learn that the
real money is in pain management.

FBI Special Agent Kurt McKenzie becomes
an expert on the George brothers'

operation.

Chris and his brother Jeff met a corrupt
physician who taught the both of them

how to set up a pain clinic to make
money and how to maximize your profits

selling drugs.

Legal drug dealing is what they were
taught.

The drug the doctor recommends is
oxycodone, a powerfully addictive

is actually synthetic heroin.

and it is creating an epidemic of
addiction across the country.

In Virginia, 28 deaths by overdose in
two years.

Kentucky, 59 deaths by overdose in the
last year.

Maine, 10 deaths, 156 arrests this year.

Most states have a system that monitors
the pills, but not Florida.

In fact, Florida laws are so lax, there
is nothing to stop Chris George, a

convicted felon with no medical
experience, from opening a pain clinic

selling powerfully addictive narcotics.

And so while Jeff sticks with steroids,
Chris decides to move ahead with the

oxycodone business.

He realized that this was something that
people were wanting, and he realized

that it was a product that he could
provide for them. And given the laws in

state of Florida at the time, he could
do so.

Chris chooses busy Oakland Park
Boulevard north of Fort Lauderdale as

location for his clinic.

Next, he needs to find some doctors.

Pain management is really a highly
specialized field.

Specialists are found through firms that
market for specialists.

But Chris has a different idea.

They went about getting doctors by
advertising Craigslist.

Craigslist.

He simply places an ad, MD with DEA
license needed for busy pain clinic, and

adds a stunning attraction.

make up to $400 an hour.

Sure enough, the responses pour in.

Several of the doctors were former
emergency room physicians.

One of them was a former proctologist.

One was a former plastic surgeon. The
one thing they all had in common was

wanted to make money quickly.

At the start of 2008, there are just a
few pain clinics in Florida.

Chris is making it up as he goes.

He pays the doctors $1 ,000 to use their
DEA licenses to order pills from

wholesalers. And as for legitimate
-looking medical forms... At one point,

sort of walked into another pain clinic
and simply took the paperwork that that

pain clinic used and then sort of cut
and pasted their names on top of it and

started using that.

Finally, by February, Chris is ready to
open.

He calls his business South Florida Pain
Clinic.

The doctor that had given me this idea,
he told him, this is what we do and this

is how it's going to be and it's going
to be great.

Don't worry, they will come.

Next on American Greed, a new kind of
drugstore opens in a Florida strip mall.

I'm just like, this ain't nothing but a
drug deal, you know, kind of legal.

In February 2008 in Broward County,
Florida, a new chapter in prescription

addiction begins when Chris George's
South Florida Pain Clinic opens for

business. South Florida Pain was an
experiment.

It was saying, let's see if we can do
this and how does this work. So this was

their learning experience. This was
their starter clinic.

And what a way to start with a bang.

The first day they maybe had seven or
eight patients.

By three weeks in, they were treating,
you know, probably 30, 40, 50 patients,

you know. It got to be so many people
that they were parking in our parking

the McDonald's parking lot.

Across the street, Mark, who owns a
billiard business, watches in amazement

the business explodes.

I arrived on a rainy thunderstorm
morning. There was 14 vehicles and over

people out the front door waiting to go
in. And that's when I was like, this is

pretty crazy.

It just exploded because there was this
addict network grapevine that spread

the news that there was a place that was
churning out pills.

One of the people plugged into that
grapevine is Steve Mazza.

Now head of the catering department for
a non -profit organization,

Mazza started using drugs as a teenager.

Back then, it wasn't like today. It was
like pot, alcohol, Quaaludes, you

know, some pills and cocaine.

By 2008, he has been introduced to
oxycodone and knows how addictive it is.

You don't care about nothing else. You
really, you might think you care about

other things, but you don't. If you have
your pills, then you're okay. You can

care about other things. But if you
don't have them pills, your main concern

is getting more pills.

A friend tells him about South Florida
pain.

I was nervous because I've never been to
a pain clinic.

And so I was more or less like, are you
sure?

But he quickly learns there is nothing
to fear.

They called my name, went back, seen the
doctor, and the doctor asked me where

it hurts. I told him I don't think I
talked to him for more than a minute and

half, and he was already writing the
prescriptions out for 280 oxycodones, 30

milligrams.

What separated?

Real doctors from what these people did,
it's everybody who came through those

doors. Everybody got the same drugs in
roughly the same amounts every single

time, and nobody was ever diagnosed with
anything.

And because Florida law allows clinics
to dispense the pills they prescribe,

patients walk out the door with hundreds
of pills.

It was extremely easy, and I'm just
like, this ain't nothing but a drug

you know, kind of legal.

Mazza says he pays 90 cents a pill
inside the clinic, but out on the

pills are worth a lot more.

We had people, friends, actually the guy
that introduced us to the stuff, that

we would sell him 100 pills for $7
apiece.

Make 700 bucks right off of the top.
That would pay for the doctor visit.

Then you would still have 180 pills left
for yourself.

What the clinic is selling is a generic
oxycodone, small blue pills that are

water -soluble, just what the addicts
want.

And at that time, it was that roxycodone
brand, because they could immediately

crush them, water -soluble, put them
into a syringe, shoot it up, snort it,

other things, where they get that
immediate influx of the oxycodone into

system. They had to have security
outside the pain clinic to make people

their cars and actually leave the
parking lot. Because if they didn't

parking lot, they knew they were in
their cars snorting their pills or

their pills. They weren't just getting
in the car and leaving like a normal

doctor's office.

Clearly, this is not a normal doctor's
office.

These were young guys having a good
time. They weren't...

particularly serious about this business
at all in the early going.

I mean, Chris thought it was kind of a
lark.

The police are called constantly by
neighbors complaining of parking

and by patients who say their pills were
stolen. And along with the cops come

reporters. In July, Fort Lauderdale's
Sun Sentinel brings unwanted attention

the clinic.

Chris decides he needs to move, get a
bigger place with more parking.

But his customers continued to anger the
neighbors.

Being drug abusers and drug addicts, a
lot of the activity they brought with

them is what you'd expect from drug
abusers and drug addicts.

Prostitution, theft, fighting in the
parking lots, urinating.

So all the surrounding businesses were
constantly complaining to local law

enforcement.

Finally, it's clear that it's time to
start again, this time even bigger and

with a new name.

South Florida pain had become this sort
of symbol of overprescribing and

drug addiction. And he decided that he
needed to change the name to something

else that wouldn't be associated with
that. And he decided a good name would

American pain.

Next on American Greed, what to do with
all that money.

They said we need large, you know,
garbage cans and receptacles, you know,

almost lawn or trash bags.

to put the cash in.

In early 2008, more than 1 ,000 miles
from South Florida and eastern Kentucky,

local law enforcement officers see a
strange price shift in the street value

prescription pills.

Normally when you talk about oxycodone
trafficking throughout Appalachia, a 30

milligram tablet would cost you $30 on
the street. We were getting reports that

a 30 milligram tablet was going for as
little as $10 apiece on the street.

And soon the reason becomes clear.

Pills are pouring into Appalachia from
just one state.

Law enforcement officers were making a
tremendous amount of drug buys,

undercover drug buys, and then would
find prescription bottles.

that were given to them by Florida
physicians, and that became a recurring

scenario in every search that was
conducted.

It's terrible news.

More pills for a part of the country
that has had a devastating oxycodone

addiction problem for years.

You have coal miners in that area, and
you have a lot of individuals who ended

up with lung cancer, black lung disease.

And the pill was heavily marketed in
that area to physicians as something

could be prescribed to patients to treat
the pain associated with those various

diseases.

Unfortunately, individuals became very
quickly addicted to the medication and

sought out the medication in various
ways.

The pharmaceutical company's marketing
campaign spells disaster as an epidemic

of addiction spreads throughout the
area.

How many people here have actually been
affected by OxyContin in one form or

another? People who have babies on their
hips.

Women. Do you know where I can get some
pills at?

And, you know, you can't expect your
kids to be raised good when you're doing

yourself.

A whole generation basically lost their
parents or the young children of the 18

to 25 -year -olds were just taken away
because of the problem.

And so the state clamps down.

instituting a monitoring system that
makes it hard for addicts to get pills

multiple doctors in the area.

But Florida does not have a monitoring
system, and so addicts can collect as

many pills as they want if they go to
Florida.

And that's why Interstate 75 from
Kentucky to Florida becomes known as Oxy

Express, as thousands of drug seekers
head straight to Chris George's American

Pain.

They were the number one provider for
these prescription pills that were being

refilled here in Kentucky.

They were the hot topic. Everybody went
to American Pain.

And soon, Chris's success is inspiring
other businesses.

We had an airline that had begun
sponsoring direct flights from

Virginia to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
There was a demand for quick travel,

turnaround to get down there and get
back.

Some making the trip are individuals
supporting their own addiction, but many

are drug dealers who cover the addict's
costs, known as a sponsor.

He would pay all their expenses. He
would pay for their gas if they took

own vehicle. He would pay for their
food. He would pay for their cigarettes,

for their lodging. He would even pay for
their doctor's office visit, and he

would pay to have the prescriptions
filled.

And then the patient splits the supply
of pills with the sponsor.

With a split of the pills, giving 50 %
to the drug seeker that goes into the

clinic, the sponsor could still easily
make $5 ,000 cash on this per person.

You take five people down in a minivan,
you know the sponsor can clear $25 ,000

on one trip.

It was unlike other types of drug
networks because

anyone could get in.

You know, if you had enough money to
just get down to Florida and get back,

could make several thousand dollars.

And because American Pain doesn't take
insurance or Medicaid, every one of

people walks into the door of the clinic
with a wad of cash.

They pay $150 for the doctor visit and
as much as $1 ,200 for the pills.

So the cash drawers were being filled up
within an hour or less.

And they quickly realized that that
alone wasn't going to cut it.

So they said, look, let's just put it in
trash cans. We need large, you

know, garbage cans and receptacles to
put the cash in after, you know, the

drawers would fill up.

But typically, banks are not comfortable
with trash bags of money. And so Chris

is forced to keep the money moving.

There are a multitude of banks that they
were rejected from and told, we don't

want your bits anymore.

And he would just pull his money out and
go to the next one.

Some of Chris's cash goes to buying big
ticket items.

Bigger toys, bigger boats, bigger cars,
faster cars, faster boats,

odd trucks, things that I thought

was stupid.

But surprisingly, Chris is most
interested in saving his money.

He liked to see it.

He liked to take the money, stack it up
in a safe. I want to see it. I don't

want to fly somewhere and spend it.

He was all about just turning a profit,
keeping it for himself, and

making sure it was there and that his
future was secure.

These days, for Chris, the pain clinic
is no longer a fun experiment.

The money is too good.

Now it's all business.

If he could have had it open 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, and had, you

know, people backing him to do so, he
would have done it in a heartbeat.

I mean, I had people ask me, when is
enough enough?

It's never enough for Chris, and it will
never be enough.

That's for sure.

Next on American Greed, the real cost of
doing business with the George

brothers.

Oh.

I had a call from a police officer
saying that your son, Joseph Bartolucci,

found deceased.

At the end of 2008, Chris George is
pulling in as much as $80 ,000 a day at

American Pain. And that inspires his
brother, Jeff, to open his own pain

As Jeff sees the growth that continues
with South Florida pain into American

pain, he's like, maybe this is something
I should do. And he starts East Coast

Pain. In February 2009,

a 24 -year -old man named Joey
Bartolucci makes an appointment at

A graduate of the University of Florida,
Bartolucci hopes to become a paramedic,

but he has an addiction to pain meds.

He told me.

He talked to me about it. I was very
proud of him, that he had the wisdom to

know that he had a problem and that he
should seek help for his problem.

And he worked very hard to overcome it.

But on February 27th, Bartolucci is
struggling.

And he walks into East Coast Pain and is
given a prescription for 180 milligrams

of the opioid hydromorphone, known as
Dilaudid, and another for an anxiety

medication.

The next day, his mother learns what
happened.

Oh, I had a call from a police officer
saying that I thought he was going to

that Joey had been arrested.

And he said, your son Joseph Bartolucci
was found deceased today. And I just

totally freaked, hung up on him and just
started screaming.

Joey Bartolucci is found dead in his
apartment.

The coroner rules his death an
accidental overdose.

His sister disagrees.

It wasn't just an accident that they
accidentally created the

greedy business.

They gave him two deadly pills that were
even more deadly when they were

combined. They did it on purpose, and it
killed someone.

When the story of Bartolucci's death
makes the local paper, Jeff is quoted

saying it's not his problem. The clinic
and the doctor can't control a patient

if they go home and do something stupid.

He adds, I bought my Lamborghini four
years ago. If I wreck it, am I going to

hold the Lamborghini dealership
responsible?

They just didn't care.

They just cared about money, cars, nice
houses.

They're the scumbags.

They are the scumbags.

At this time in Florida, seven people
each day end up like Joey Bartolucci,

of prescription overdose.

Many who come from out of state don't
even make it home.

We got reports from highway patrol
officers that they would find people

behind the wheels of their cars or dead
in the passenger seat of the car at the

parking lot of a quick stop or in a
motel along a highway.

And, of course, many die after they get
home.

This is Linda.

If you look right here, found in her
wallet was her appointment card from

American Pain, LLC.

We found all these pill bottles.

There's her flight information to where
she flew down there before, her hotel

reservation, where she stayed.

Her family found her sitting at her desk
with all this information laying there

around her. This is all just evidence of
the devastation that places like

American Pain caused in eastern
Kentucky.

And because local authorities are
requesting medical records from American

people at the clinic know their patients
are dying.

There is, in my mind, absolutely.

No way that anyone who worked at
American Pain, whether it was someone

greeted you at the door, who filled your
prescription in the pharmacy in the

back, who took you from one room to
another to the physicians that did not

that people were dying as a result of
coming to that clinic.

No question whatsoever.

The most difficult part of this for many
is the role of the doctors.

We were all shocked. We could not
believe.

that doctors would put profit above
their concerns for whether or not their

patients lived or died. But that's
exactly what they did.

And the money is incredible.

Most of the doctors are making more than
$20 ,000 a week.

Well, they're simply drug dealers is all
they are. They're no different than a

cartel member from South America. They
killed a vast amount of people and made

lot of money doing so.

But it's not only the doctors who seem
not to care.

It is also the man who hires them at
American Pain.

Chris did not care anything about these
people.

They were a means to make money. He
could care less whether they lived or

Diana George says it's the money that
changes Chris.

The greed.

You know, it's very different. You know,
you could look at him and just see

that, like, the expression on his face
was, I don't give a crap about anything

but myself.

You know, before he was different.

To me, he became a monster.

Some of the best evidence of how Chris
feels comes in November 2009.

Three patients from Tennessee leaving
American Pain come to a railroad

Just as the gates are coming down,
inexplicably, the driver accelerates

tracks and then realizes the mistake.

But by that time, the gate had lowered
so they couldn't pull back. And then the

driver...

It accelerated just as the train came in
and hit them.

All three die.

What no one knows at American Pain is
that at this point, Chris George is the

target of a federal investigation.

FBI undercover agents are videotaping
inside the clinic, recording the

lining up for pills.

And Chris's cell phone has been tapped.

Agents are listening to his call.

When he hears the news of the train
wreck, this is what he says.

Yeah, it's easy to get hit by a train.

As an agent, it's a very human moment
when you hear individuals speak in that

regard about a fellow human being in
such a crass way without having any

to, oh, my gosh, what are we doing here?
And it was just another day.

It was just another day in the day of a
life in American pain.

Next, no worries for the George twins.

They thought they were bulletproof, in
essence, legally, that they were legal

drug dealers.

Hear how Chris George deals with
competitors.

Go to cnbcprime .com slash American
Greed.

Feeling greedy?

Want more than your share of behind -the
-scenes dirt?

Follow us at American Greed TV on
Twitter.

We'll be right back.

December 2009.

American Pain is holding its Christmas
party at The Breakers, a luxury resort

Palm Beach.

That was actually the first time I felt
like super glamorous. I spent $20 ,000

on gowns and, you know, more on shoes.
And he was, you know, out there smoking

cigars, just talking to his pals.

The party has a Las Vegas theme.

Gambling tables are set up and funny
money is printed.

They used little dollar bills, little
fake dollar bills that had Chris

face where George Washington's face
would normally be.

Chris appears to be on top of the world.
In the two years since he opened his

first clinic, dozens have followed his
lead.

There are now more pain clinics in
Broward County than there are

That speaks volumes to me.

how lucrative this business, this
industry was in South Florida. There

places for people to come get
prescription drugs, oxycodone, than any

place in the country in one county in
South Florida.

And Chris has expanded his own
operation, opening a second clinic he

Executive Pain in West Palm Beach.

He asks his wife Diana to run the
business.

At the end of the day, Chris George was
in charge of the clinic unquestionably,

but you could tell in listening to her
conversations with Chris George and in

going through the evidence afterward
that Diana was very organized, and she

a lot of pride in running Executive
Payne.

But now, looking back, Diana tells a
different story.

I thought that people are dying, people
are sick, people are abusing these

drugs.

I thought about it all the time.

You know, there would be young women
that I would see come in. You could see

they had bracelets covering up, track
marks on their arm, makeup and stuff.

I was ashamed at what I was doing, at
what we were doing.

We were all responsible for that, all of
us.

But Chris's businesses continue to grow,
outpacing every other pain clinic in

the country.

One of the reasons that we honed in on
Chris George and his clinics at the time

was of the top physicians that were
dispensing oxycodone in the nation, five

them worked at American Pain.

But big is not big enough for Chris.

He wants to be the biggest of all.

And at the end of 2009, he sets his eyes
on a 20 ,000 -square -foot former bank

building in Lake Worth, the future home
for American Pain.

It was gigantic.

It was like windowless, you know, so it
had this sort of fortress -like feel to

it. You know, it was sort of impermeable
to the outside world.

I think that's how it felt.

American Pain in Lake Worth opens in
January 2010 with two huge waiting rooms

that can accommodate as many as 500
patients.

It is later described as a Walmart of
addiction.

It looked like a DMV.

Occasionally patients would pass out on
the floor.

going through drug withdrawal.

Sometimes patients would be fighting
each other over pills.

The clinic's own security cameras
offered a bird's -eye view of how the

operation ran.

This is just when they walk in the door
in the morning. Now, the sad part is you

can look at this video.

I guarantee you some of the people
you're going to see on this video for

day, they're not alive anymore, just
statistically.

Chris had lines on his floor because the
ags came in, they were either so high

or they were so withdrawn, they didn't
know where to go. And he had lines and

arrows pointed on the floor for them to
go, go to Dr. So -and -so.

By now, Steve Mazza is a regular at
Chris's clinics.

I went to the same doctors for month
after month after month. I had a

appointment every week.

I was getting 200 pills from every
doctor I seen each week.

And for him, American pain in Lake Worth
is beyond belief.

I was shocked when they opened that
building up. It was like a mini mall.

The whole wall, from the floor to the
ceiling, a 30 -foot wall,

was all medical files.

The clinic system is remarkably
efficient.

Chris George made it so easy for these
guys. They didn't have to write anything

down. They just had to stamp it.

They had stamps in there with every
possible concoction you can imagine.

They had the dosage units, the
milligrams, the pharmaceutical drug

doctor just stamped it.

I actually got into an argument with one
doctor, and I explained to him, I said,

this is not medicine.

When you were working in the emergency
room, Setting broken bones and suturing

cuts, I couldn't do that. But I could do
what you did here.

You handed out pills like a trained
circus performer.

There's no effort in that. You did no
medical evaluation of these patients.

never diagnosed an illness. You did
nothing.

You rubber -stamped and handed out
prescription -controlled substances.

That's all you did.

And to prove his case, McKenzie actually
times patients' office visits.

The minute their foot crosses the door,
I hit my stopwatch, I sit and time it.

The minute the patient's foot walks out
of the door, I stop the stopwatch.

So on average, we would see examination
times of less than four minutes, usually

closer to three minutes and 45 seconds.

Either way, every one of those patients
got several hundred doses of narcotic

medication in less than four minutes.

They were a machine, a complete drug
-pushing machine, just amazing.

And equally amazing to many is that this
business operates in full light of day,

with a billboard and ads.

We spoke at length at family dinners,
and I questioned it,

and they were... Absolutely fine.

Things were above board. It was wide
open. Anyone could see it. It was

hidden. They had doctors that were real
doctors working for them. They thought

they were bulletproof, in essence,
legally, that they were legal drug

that they, if anybody was going to be
held responsible, it was going to be the

doctors, because they were the ones with
the medical license and with the DEA

license to prescribe the controlled
substances.

I trusted him, and I shouldn't have when
it came to that part.

You know, I always believed him. You
know, I'm like, is this right? Is it

Is what we're doing okay?

Yeah, it's fine. We can't get in trouble
for it. It's written here, you know. As

long as we have this in place, as long
as we have this in place, as long as we

have this in place, we'd be fine.

Now American Pain is seeing as many as
500 patients a day.

They are dispensing thousands of pills
each week.

And the number of people dying is
growing day by day.

As the overdose death started becoming
more prevalent and as the momentum grew

and grew, we knew that we had to do
something. And it was time to take

everything that we had at the time and
say, we're done. We're bringing Chris

George's world to an end.

Next on American Greed, big boys do cry
when they're busted.

And here he is now. He's crying on the
phone.

Scared to death. Doesn't know what to
do.

By the morning of March 3, 2010, Chris
and Jeff George have in just two years

sold 20 million pills and brought in $40
million.

And today, all that stops.

We wanted more than anything for Chris
George to feel the weight of the federal

government come down on him in a matter
of minutes.

Early in the morning.

More than 200 local and federal law
enforcement officers simultaneously

on the George brothers' clinics and on
the homes of everyone who works there.

When agents arrive at Chris George's
house, they are surprised.

Chris and Diana have already left for
the day.

He called me, and he said the police
were at the house.

They had dogs in the house and all that
other stuff. I'm just like, okay.

The FBI is listening in on the call.

Chris tells Diana.

Just a scared little boy.

Scared little boy.

And, you know, it was heart -wrenching
to see him like that because I'm so used

to seeing that, you know, savvy
business, tough guy, man that, you know,

world. And here he is now. He's crying
on the phone.

Scared to death. Doesn't know what to
do.

The FBI finds a few guns and some cash.

But the search of his mother's house
turns up the biggest file.

Four small safes with $4 .5 million in
cash.

Given the fact that we recovered so many
millions of dollars from the attic of

Chris George's mother's home on the day
of the search warrant told me that Chris

George knew that one day it was going to
be over.

Somehow, though, in his mind, I think he
thought that he wasn't going to be

going to jail and that there would be
millions of dollars left over for him to

be able to play with when it was all
over.

Later, when Chris is brought in for
questioning, his response surprises no

He says, you guys got nothing on me. You
guys got nothing on me. Our response

was, Chris, you hired these doctors.

You took these doctors' DEA numbers and
you ordered pills under them.

Even though you're not the owner, you're
the nominee owner, you still ran the

show. The phone calls prove you ran the
show.

There's two ways about it.

And that is what they get him on,
conspiring to operate a criminal

In 2011, Chris, Jeff, and Diana, along
with clinic doctors and most of their

employees, are indicted.

Charges include racketeering, drug
trafficking, money laundering, and wire

fraud. Jeff George goes first.

Treating guilty not only to the
racketeering charge, but also to second

murder for his role in the death of Joey
Bartolucci. He is sentenced to 20

years. He said that he was sorry. I
think that he's sorry that he got

I think that he's sorry that his life is
in shambles, that he's going to prison.

Later, Diana George pleads guilty to
wire fraud.

She is sentenced to two and a half years
and is released in October 2013.

She and Chris are now divorced.

You know, I mean, it did suck being away
and going to prison. It really, really

sucked every day. But those were the
choices I made that put me there. I

to turn a blind eye and not really think
about what I was actually doing or

who I was hurting or who we all were
hurting.

Went with it.

In October 2011, Chris finally pleaded
guilty to racketeering and to sentence

14 years.

And no one is more surprised than his
father.

It's shocking to me. I'm living through
this. I never would have expected two

kids that went to Wellington Christian
School to wind up in federal prison as

prisoners. Maybe they would have.

Some problems with traffic tickets and
stuff like that, you know, those sort of

things. Not 15, 20 years in prison.

Out of 14 doctors who are indicted, 10
plead guilty.

Those who go to trial are convicted on
drug and money laundering charges, but

are cleared of counts related to the
deaths of their patients.

One of the problems we had with
prosecuting this case is that most

rightfully so, hold doctors on a
pedestal.

And they don't hold drug addicts in very
high regard at all.

So to convince your average American
that a doctor is not really a savior

in a white coat, he or she is no
different than a street drug dealer, and

it's their fault that these addicts are
in this condition, or it's their fault

that this addict died, is very difficult
to do.

Very difficult to do.

Almost two years after the shutdown of
the clinics, the state of Florida

implements a drug monitoring program and
tightens regulations around the sale of

oxycodone. And the overdose death rates
begin to decline.

One person who survives his addiction is
Steve Mazza.

After the birth of his daughter, Mazza
decides he needs to get off the pills.

One day, he realizes he has a choice.

I could just get on this bus and go
right down to South County and ring the

doorbell and tell them, look, I'm going
to kill myself if you don't help me.

So that's what I did.

With a lot of intensive treatment at the
hospital and support from the Lord's

Place, a social service organization in
Lake Worth, Mazza now has a full -time

job as head of catering for the agency.

And I never thought I would have a
decent...

paying job, paying taxes again, and have
my daughter on my own.

Up north in eastern Kentucky, the legacy
of the Florida pain clinics continue to

be felt.

Now there's a new drug of choice,
heroin.

We never had a heroin problem in this
region prior to the prescription pill

epidemic. Heroin just wasn't a drug that
the Appalachian region was suffering

from for whatever reason.

But once the opioids were introduced to
this population through the diversion of

the prescription medication, and now
that source is becoming very much

for them to get, we're seeing the influx
of heroin, which is much more

devastating.

As people look back on the short but
catastrophic episode of Chris and Jeff

George, everyone agrees that there was
just one thing behind it all.

I think what we saw was that greed just
overcame everyone.

It overcame their sense of morality,
their sense of right and wrong, their

of how we treat a fellow human being.
And the fact of the matter is, is that

they were getting a lot of money, and
yet they were operating day to day.

came in. Nobody shut them down. So the
greed brought forth this

amazing sense of immorality.

It made them feel as though they could
do no wrong.

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