Opioids. Credit: David Smart/Shutterstock.com

After eluding police for five days, former chief compliance officer James Barclay Monday turned himself in to federal authorities to face a felony charge that he helped his Ohio drug company illegally sell millions of dollars' worth of opioids.

Barclay is the second chief compliance officer to be arrested by federal prosecutors in three months over their companies' illegal opioid sales.

In April federal prosecutors brought the first-of-its-kind opioid distribution case against a drug company, Rochester Drug Co-Operative based in New York, and its executives. The execs included former chief compliance officer William Pietruszewski, who pleaded guilty and is cooperating with authorities.

In the Ohio case, Barclay made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati Monday afternoon and was released on his own recognizance. He is scheduled to be arraigned July 31 on one count of conspiracy to distribute and dispense a controlled substance, a court spokesman told Corporate Counsel.

Barclay was indicted on July 17 along with his company, Miami-Luken Inc., its former president and two owner-operators of small pharmacies. The other three defendants were arrested then, but Barclay could not be found. U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman urged him to surrender, which he eventually did on Monday.

There was no attorney immediately listed in court documents for Barclay, who could not be reached for comment. The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

In a press conference Glassman, when asked about the executives being charged, said, “I believe it is incumbent on us to ensure that justice is done whether that person is dealing [drugs] at the street level or enabling it in the boardroom. If someone is criminally responsible, then they should be prosecuted and held accountable.”

The indictment states that between January 2008 and December 2015, Barclay and the other defendants and unnamed co-conspirators conspired “to knowingly and intentionally distribute and dispense … controlled substances outside the scope of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.”

It states that Miami-Luken, located in Springboro, Ohio, a rural town near Dayton, made some $173 million in sales per year. The company, facing millions of dollars in civil lawsuits, went out of business in January.

The indictment says Barclay and the others allegedly “failed to maintain effective controls against diversion of controlled substances, failed to report suspicious orders to the [U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency] and continued to ship the dangerous addictive drugs to pharmacies in rural Appalachia where the opioid epidemic was at its peak,” even after being warned about suspicious orders by federal agents.

For example, according to the indictment, Barclay and Miami-Luken ignored obvious red flags by distributing more than 2.3 million oxycodone pills and 2.6 million hydrocodone pills to a small pharmacy in Ocean, West Virginia, a town of only 1,394 people.

The indictment states that Barclay and his co-conspirators sought to “unlawfully enrich themselves by: (1) profiting from the unlawful distribution and dispensation of controlled substances; (2) distributing and dispensing large amounts of opioids to known pill mills; and (3) facilitating the diversion of oxycodone and hydrocodone, Schedule II and III controlled substances, for illicit use.”

It also says that Barclay and Miami-Luken “failed to maintain effective controls against diversion, and failed to exercise due care in confirming the legitimacy of all orders.”