Telehealth Firm Indicted on Alleged $100 Million Adderall Scheme

Telemedicine company Done Global Inc. was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday over what prosecutors said is a scheme to illegally distribute over $100 million in Adderall and other ADHD medicines over the internet.

The move is highly unusual for a Justice Department that more often reaches out-of-court settlements with corporations and occurred a month after the company’s founder and clinical director were found guilty on drug charges.

The indictment in the San Francisco-based US District Court for the Northern District of California alleges the digital health company also committed health care fraud when it conspired to prescribe 40 million pills of Adderall and other stimulants to patients who didn’t need the drugs, DOJ announced Wednesday.

Done Global’s founder and CEO Ruthia He and its clinical president David Brody were found guilty in November of health care fraud and drug charges after a nearly two-month jury trial. They were first charged in 2024 in what federal prosecutors said was a first-of-its-kind case against executives at a telehealth company.

Prosecutors are now attaching that criminal conduct to the company itself, accusing Done of operating a subscription model where individuals paid a monthly fee to receive easy access to Adderall prescriptions through a network of doctors and medical providers. Done Global pressured its prescribers to write more prescriptions without a medical purpose, prosecutors said.

“Instead of leveraging technology to improve patient access to care and enhance communications, Done Global saw it as a way to boost profit,” San Francisco-based US Attorney Craig H. Missakian said in a statement. “We will vigorously pursue companies that engage in this kind of fraud and put patients at risk.”

DOJ was in negotiations with the company to reach a settlement in the months leading up to last month’s trial, and they were re-engaged after the trial conviction but without success, according to a source familiar with the indictment.

In October, the department’s criminal fraud section took a similarly infrequent step of going to the grand jury to obtain an indictment of another corporation—voting technology vendor Smartmatic on foreign bribery charges—also after resolution talks broke down.

Matthew Galeotti, the acting head of DOJ’s Criminal Division, previewed the possibility of more company indictments when speaking to an audience of white-collar defense attorneys Dec. 3.

Businesses who engage in meaningful cooperation and negotiations can expect more favorable resolutions, he said at a legal conference. “But the flip side is when you don’t take advantage of that collaborative effort, there’s always a chance—and I think you may see more to come—where companies get indicted if they can’t come to resolutions with us.”

Done Global is among a number of telehealth companies that saw fast growth during the pandemic when patients had difficulty accessing in-person mental health and medical care. Cerebral Inc., a similar digital mental health service, resolved a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department last year after agreeing to pay $3.6 million.