Three pharmacies and seven people from Essex County, N.J., were indicted by a state grand jury on charges they allegedly submitted more than $2.3 million dollars in false Medicaid claims, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s office.

The pharmacy owners and employees are accused in the scheme of paying patients with prescriptions for HIV/AIDS drugs and other expensive medications to go without their prescribed medications. The suspects then used the completed prescription forms to bill Medicaid, Medicare and private insurers for drugs that were never actually dispensed, prosecutors said.

Brian X. Chandler, former owner and director of Samaritan Medical in Newark, who also went by the name “Dr. X,” was at the center of the alleged scheme, according to investigators.

Chandler, who has pleaded guilty for his role in the scheme, recruited Medicaid patients to his clinic to write multiple prescriptions for each of their beneficiaries and selling the prescriptions to the pharmacies. Chandler purchased medication from his patients as well, which he then returned to the pharmacies where they were billed to Medicaid for 10 times to 30 times what patients were paid, according to prosecutors.

The three Newark pharmacies — Pricus Inc., which operates as Campus Pharmacy; Ajari Inc., which operates as Harrison Pharmacy; and Orange Drugs — were indicted on charges they conspired to defraud Medicaid.

Four pharmacists indicted in the case include Nadeem Akhtar, 49, Omar Mohammad, 31, Calvin Osei, 32 and Nwala Gabriel, 49. In addition, three pharmacy technicians from East Orange’s Pharmacy of America — Jannah Rasheedah Amatul Muid, 25, Shivonne Diacy Forde, 26 and Alicia Stephens, 29 — also were indicted.

All seven people and the three pharmacies were charged with second-degree conspiracy, second-degree health care claims fraud and third-degree Medicaid fraud.

Osei was also charged with third-degree filing false state income tax returns.

Samina Nadeem, 52, owner of Orange Drugs, the wife of Akhtar and the mother of Mohammad, also was indicted on charges of third-degree witness tampering for allegedly trying to coerce a witness to lie to investigators.

“Pharmacists are supposed to dispense medicines to preserve health and help those who are sick, but these defendants profited by depriving indigent patients of drugs they needed,” said New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram.

The investigation, called Operation PharmScam, was conducted jointly by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Jersey City Police Department, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations and the New Jersey Division of Taxation.