Two pharmacy technicians received sentences including three years of probation for their role in a scheme to defraud Medicaid by billing for expensive HIV/AIDS prescriptions that were never dispensed.

Jannah Rasheedah Amatul Muid, 26, of East Orange, N.J., and Alicia Stephens, 29, of Newark, N.J., also were barred from working for any Medicaid provider for five years, according to New Jersey Attorney General Paula T. Dow. Muid must also perform 150 hours of community service and Stephens, 100 hours.

The two pleaded guilty Jan. 20 to third-degree Medicaid fraud after their indictment last year by a state grand jury. Through the plea, Muid and Stephens, former technicians at Pharmacy of America in East Orange, admitted that between May 11, 2006, and October 15, 2008, they paid Medicaid beneficiaries for prescriptions and subsequently billed Medicaid for drugs never given to those beneficiaries.

Both were charged as a result of Operation PharmScam, an ongoing investigation targeting Medicaid fraud in 2008 conducted by the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Jersey City Police Department and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations.

A third pharmacy technician at Pharmacy of America, Shivonne Diacy Forde, 27, of Orange, N.J., also pleaded guilty to accusations of third-degree unlawful possession of prescription drugs with intent to distribute, according to officials.

Forde admitted to possessing prescription cough syrup with codeine, without a valid prescription, with intention to provide to others for distribution on the street. Officials said the state will recommend a sentence similar to that of Muid and Stephens at her sentencing, scheduled for June 3.

Seven other defendants were also indicted as a result of the investigation into Pharmacy of America and other pharmacies allegedly buying prescriptions from patients and billing Medicaid for medicine never distributed.

“Our Medicaid Fraud Control Unit has made it a priority to detect and prosecute dishonest pharmacy operators who view the high cost of many prescription medicines as a golden opportunity to fraudulently bill the Medicaid program,” said Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza Dagli. “We have indicted four pharmacists and three pharmacies in this ongoing investigation.”