Practicing pharmacy in the District of Columbia can be a rewarding professional practice. The nation’s capital has a substantial population, sophisticated healthcare system, and abundant professional opportunities for a qualified and licensed pharmacist. You earned your pharmacy practice opportunities with a large investment in your pharmacy education, internship, and licensure. Your criminal issues, though, can adversely affect your license. You could face District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy disciplinary charges leading to the suspension or revocation of your pharmacy license. Losing your license means losing your practice, its income, and other benefits. Don’t risk your license on self-representation or unqualified counsel. Instead, retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team. Our skilled and experienced attorneys are available in any District of Columbia location to help defend and defeat your Board of Pharmacy disciplinary charges related to your criminal issues. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our strategic and effective license defense.
District of Columbia Criminal Arrests
Unfortunately, District of Columbia residents commit crimes at high rates compared to the national average. District of Columbia violent crimes are roughly triple the national average, at over 1,100 per 100,000 residents. District of Columbia property crimes are more than double the national average, at over 4,300 per 100,000 residents. The District sees over 1,000 violent crimes and well over 10,000 property crimes annually. That’s a lot of crime. Robberies and assaults with a dangerous weapon are the most frequent violent crimes, while theft crimes are the most frequent property crimes. Shoplifting, vandalism, trespassing, and simple assault are other common crimes, along with drunk driving and drug crimes. Your criminal issues are part of an elaborate and busy District of Columbia criminal justice system.
District of Columbia Pharmacist Criminal Arrests
Unfortunately, District of Columbia pharmacists also commit serious crimes arising out of their pharmacy practice, which can be a strong inducement to criminal misconduct. Federal authorities recently arrested a District of Columbia pharmacist on charges of illegal pharmaceutical shipments. Illegal drug trafficking by “neighborhood pharmacists” is also a District of Columbia issue, for which federal authorities obtain criminal convictions. Nationally, prosecutors charge and convict pharmacists for unlawful dispensing causing death, unlawful opioid dispensing, insurance fraud, kickbacks, pill mills, obstructing justice, and infectious disease spread. The District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy also watches court records and monitors the media for pharmacist criminal convictions. If they haven’t already, your criminal issues will likely soon come to light before the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy. If and when that happens, let our attorneys help defend your disciplinary charges related to criminal issues.
District of Columbia Pharmacist Licensure Authority
The District of Columbia Health Occupations Board’s code authorizes the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy to license and discipline pharmacists for practice in the District. The first provision of the Health Occupations Boards code requires pharmacists and other healthcare professionals to obtain and retain a license to practice in the District. The code further provides for a fine of up to $5,000 per day for code violations such as the unauthorized practice of pharmacy without a valid and current license. You must retain your pharmacist license to practice in the District. Let us help you defend any disciplinary charges, whether related to your criminal issues or alleging other grounds.
District of Columbia Pharmacist Licensure Requirements
The District of Columbia Municipal Regulations for Pharmacists sets forth the licensure requirements for District pharmacists, including renewal requirements. Those requirements include a pharmacy degree, passing the pharmacy examination, and completing the required internship hours. Under the District of Columbia Health Occupations Board code, the pharmacist must also show that the pharmacist has not suffered a conviction for any criminal offense relating to the practice of pharmacy. The application form and process further require disclosure of criminal convictions and authorization of a criminal history background check. Our attorneys can assist you in completing criminal history disclosures and advocating with Board of Pharmacy officials that you remain qualified for licensure.
District of Columbia Pharmacist License Discipline
The District of Columbia Health Occupations Board’s code authorizes the Board of Pharmacy to suspend or revoke a pharmacist’s license, or otherwise impose discipline, on enumerated grounds. The disciplinary grounds include everything from credential fraud to mental or physical incompetence, drug addiction or alcohol abuse, false reports, sexual assault, and failure to conform to acceptable standards of practice. The grounds also include certain criminal convictions described in greater detail below. The District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy has the investigators and other disciplinary personnel and resources available to it to pursue disciplinary charges related to your criminal issues. Let us help you defend and defeat those charges.
District of Columbia Pharmacist License Discipline for Crime
The District of Columbia Health Occupations Board’s code defines three classes of crimes that may disqualify a pharmacist from licensure or subject the pharmacist to license discipline. Those classes of crimes include convictions that “bear directly on the individual’s fitness” for practice, crimes of moral turpitude also bearing directly on fitness, and crimes for conduct that would subject the individual to discipline on other disciplinary grounds. Other disciplinary grounds that could implicate criminal conviction include fraudulent and deceptive practices, and drug addiction or abuse. You can see the overlap and interplay among these three disciplinary grounds related to criminal convictions, explored further below. The District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy may discipline your license for any criminal conviction falling into any one or more of these categories. Let us help you defend disciplinary charges related to convictions in any of these categories, addressed further below.
District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy Discretion
Just because you suffer a criminal conviction falling into one of the above disciplinary categories does not mean that you must suffer license discipline. The District of Columbia Health Occupations Board’s code states only that the Board of Pharmacy “may” take disciplinary action on those grounds, not that it must take disciplinary action. The Board of Pharmacy’s discretion enables our attorneys to make out a defense in mitigation of the charges, even if you did not commit a crime subject to Board discipline. We may, for instance, be able to show your good record of pharmacy practice, your rehabilitation from the conviction, your relative immaturity when the conviction occurred, the passage of significant time, your restitution for any loss, and similar explanatory and excusing factors.
Disciplinary Differences Among Specific Crimes
The outcome of your disciplinary charges relating to your criminal conviction may, most of all, depend on our ability to distinguish your particular crime from the more serious crimes for which the Board of Pharmacy would want to discipline with license suspension or revocation. Crimes differ. No two crimes are quite the same. Some crimes are more reprehensible, damaging, deliberate, and destructive than other crimes. The following subsections address each District of Columbia category of discipline-worthy crimes.
Disciplinary Effect of District of Columbia Moral Turpitude Crimes
The first class of crimes for which the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy may discipline a licensee involves moral turpitude crimes bearing directly on pharmacy practice. Moral turpitude crimes generally involve crimes of dishonesty like theft, burglary, embezzlement, criminal fraud, and even retail fraud or shoplifting. The District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy would discipline pharmacists for moral turpitude crimes because pharmacists have access to customer financial information, pharmacy funds, valuable pharmaceuticals, prescription forms, drug orders and inventories, and insurance and program provider reimbursements. A little dishonesty can go a long way in pharmacy practice, with all of the confidential financial access and control it provides. We may nonetheless be able to defend convictions of this type based on the overturning or expungement of your conviction, the passage of time, your restitution for any loss, the limited nature of your offense, and your general good character and rehabilitation.
Disciplinary Effect of District of Columbia Practice-Related Crimes
The other main category of crimes for which the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy may discipline involves crimes bearing directly on your pharmacy practice. Pharmacy practice-related crimes may include illegal drug diversions, unlawful drug possession or distribution, criminal identity theft, conversion or embezzlement of pharmacy funds, healthcare program fraud, violations of dispensing records laws, and insurance fraud. The District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy disciplines these types of practice-related crimes because of their direct impact on customers, pharmacy owners and suppliers, healthcare programs and insurers, and the public trust in the pharmacy profession as a whole. We may be able to defend disciplinary charges for these types of practice-related crimes based on the absence of any loss related to the crime, your restitution for any loss, the absence of any injury, your good work record, the absence of any other discipline, your immaturity when the crime occurred, your rehabilitation since then, your completion of sentence, or the overturning, pardon, or expungement of the conviction.
Differences Between Criminal Case Stages
Whether you suffered a criminal conviction or instead only faced criminal investigation, arrest, or charge may also make a big difference in the outcome of your disciplinary charge. The District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy would rightly take your criminal conviction as presumptive or even conclusive evidence that you committed the charged crime. But if you only suffered a criminal charge, and the prosecutor later abandoned or the court dismissed the charge, then no such presumption should exist. The Board of Pharmacy would rightly ignore the charge. And if you only faced a criminal investigation on reasonable suspicion or arrest on probable cause, but no charges followed, the Board of Pharmacy would again rightly ignore the investigation and arrest. We can advocate these critical distinctions with the Board of Pharmacy officials.
Relief from Criminal Convictions
As already indicated above, the criminal justice system sometimes enters criminal convictions but then later provides correct or rehabilitative relief from those convictions. Thus, even if you did suffer a conviction subject to discipline, we may be able to show the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy that you received a pardon, reversal, or expungement of your conviction, or that you had your sentence commuted. Even if you completed your sentence, that fact, plus the passage of time and your clean record since your conviction, may relieve you from discipline. Let us raise these defenses as available in your case.
District of Columbia Pharmacist Duty to Report Crime Issues
Your criminal conviction is likely to come to the Board of Pharmacy’s attention, one way or another. Let us help you make a timely and proper disclosure so that you avoid additional disciplinary charges for credential fraud. For example, the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy requires that you periodically renew your license. The Board’s renewal process will likely trigger your duty to disclose your criminal issues. The Board may construe your omission to disclose as deliberate concealment, violating the disciplinary provision on credential fraud. Don’t make a problem worse than it is. Let us help you make a proper disclosure, including the context necessary for your disciplinary defense.
District of Columbia Pharmacist Licensing Procedures
You will have appropriate protective procedures that our attorneys can invoke to raise the above defenses to discipline. The District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy owes you due process in its disciplinary proceedings, meaning that we can invoke a board hearing if necessary. We can also take your available appeal if you have already lost your hearing. Civil court relief may also be available.
District of Columbia Pharmacist License Defense
If you face District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy discipline over your criminal issues, promptly retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team for the skilled and experienced defense you need. We help hundreds of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals in the District of Columbia and nationwide with effective license defense. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our highly qualified attorney representation.