California Clinic Operator Gets 18 Years

What Happened

Justin Douglas Cozart, 48, of Woodland Hills, who operated and supervised the ChiroMed medical clinics in Southern California, was sentenced on April 8, 2026 to 216 months in federal prison. A jury had convicted him in February 2025 of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and two money laundering counts. From 2017 to January 2020, recruiters brought sham patients to his clinics, where doctors including John Korzelius wrote oxycodone prescriptions that recruiters paid Cozart for. Korzelius pleaded guilty in February 2025 to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and awaits sentencing. Prosecutors have secured nine convictions.

“was sentenced today to 216 months in federal prison for participating in a drug trafficking ring that sold thousands of illegal opioid prescriptions for cash”
U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Apr 8, 2026

Related Guidance

15 Red Flags of Drug Diversion — Behavioral and transactional indicators of diversion.
Investigation Playbook — How to investigate suspected diversion inside an organization.

Sources

U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Apr 8, 2026

Case at a Glance

Setting: Medical clinics (ChiroMed)
Drug: Oxycodone
Method: Sham patients recruited to obtain oxycodone prescriptions from clinic doctors for cash
Status: Sentenced April 8, 2026 to 216 months in federal prison after February 2025 jury conviction

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

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Where this record connects to the site's working material. Links are chosen from the case's setting, drug and method fields.

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Last reviewed: September 2026 · Educational content, not legal advice.

About the author

DivertGuard is built and maintained by Alex Rodriguez, MHIIM, CPhT (also known as Jesus Rodriguez) — a drug diversion prevention program manager with more than a decade in pharmacy practice, including direct responsibility for a health-system controlled substance diversion prevention program.

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2025 — The Rounding Revolution: A High-Tech Approach to Diversion Prevention (with Emily Spiceland, PharmD)
2024 — No Pill Left Behind: Strategies for Comprehensive Drug Accountability (with Eric Andrews)
2022 — Ready for My Close Up! Implementing, Maintaining, and Expanding Drug Diversion Prevention Cameras (with Jeremy Quinn, Shawn Young, and John Bailey)

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Credentials

Doctorate candidate — Doctor of Health Informatics (DHI), Rutgers University, School of Health Professions; research on health data analytics and the prediction of cognitive decline
MHIIM — master's in health informatics, University of Tennessee Health Science Center (2019–2021)
CPhT — Certified Pharmacy Technician, with 10+ years of pharmacy practice across retail, hospice, compounding, home-health, and hospital settings

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Related Resources

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Penalty Outcomes in the Case Records

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Registry Insights: Sentences, Fines, States and Outcomes

Sentence lengths, fines and restitution, cases per 100,000 pharmacists by state, and plea and licence outcomes, each counted from the case records with its n, plus charts of cases by year, state and drug class

California Clinic Operator Gets 18 Years in Oxycodone Ring