Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company has filed a civil suit alleging four leaders in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) helped facilitate a fraudulent drug rebate scheme that cost the drug manufacturer more than $200 million.
In its 66-page lawsuit, the company says the plot it uncovered was operating under the guise of a prescription cost share program for members of the Pentecostal denomination.
The complaint accuses the defendants—which include Readus C. Smith III, the secretary-general of health and business for the denomination; Jerry Maynard Sr., a church bishop; and the latter’s two children, Jerry Maynard II and Misha Maynard—of purchasing “enormous” quantities of the diabetes drug Trulicity through DrugPlace, a pharmacy that purports to deliver medications through mail.
The lawsuit alleges the defendants resold the drug on the market and collected fraudulent rebates from Lilly by claiming the medication was given to church members, who Lilly says largely did not exist or could not be verified. According to the complaint, the rebate scheme has been happening over the course of at least six years.
The lawsuit was filed this week in Florida, where Smith is based. The Maynards live in Tennessee, where they oversee a Nashville-based church called Cathedral of Praise. Jerry Maynard Sr., who is the chairman of the Nashville church’s board, also sits on COGIC’s 12-member general board. His son, Jerry Maynard II, is the senior pastor for Cathedral of Praise. And his daughter, Misha Maynard, is the pastor of operations.
Smith and the Maynards did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Church of God in Christ, which is one of the largest Black denominations in the US, was not listed as a defendant in the case. In a statement released Wednesday, the denomination said it has “no knowledge of the acts alleged in the complaint” and has “not knowingly participated in, authorized, or condoned any of the alleged fraudulent activity described in the lawsuit.”
“COGIC takes these allegations seriously and is presently investigating the matter,” the statement added. “Given our existing relationship with Eli Lilly, the Church will fully cooperate with Eli Lilly, as well as any appropriate authorities, in connection with this case.”
In its lawsuit, Lilly paints a complicated picture of a scheme that it claims has defrauded not only its business but also other pharmaceutical manufacturers.
At the center of the tangled web is Community Health Initiative, an organization that facilitates the denomination’s prescription cost share program. The lawsuit says Jerry Maynard Sr. promoted the program to church members. His son is the company’s chairman, his daughter is vice president of operations, and Smith is the CEO.
According to the filing, DrugPlace provided the diabetes medication to the community program and submitted rebate claims “for hundreds of thousands of boxes” of the drug—worth more than $250 million—to Lilly.
The lawsuit said the pharmaceutical company paid more than $200 million in rebates between 2020 and 2024. When Lilly investigated the setup, however, it said it found fabricated data as well as details that didn’t add up, and discovered the drugs were being resold to pharmaceutical wholesalers on the secondary market through other organizations.
The drug manufacturer called the church’s cost share program a “sham” that allowed the four church leaders and intermediaries to “turn a significant profit” on each unit of Trulicity they purchased by collecting a portion of the rebate payments and the proceeds from resales.
In the complaint, Eli Lilly said this is not the first time it’s had a confrontation with DrugPlace.
Attorneys for the company wrote that Lilly used to work with the pharmacy from 2011 to 2015. Back then, DrugPlace was also working with COGIC’s community health program. But the partnership between the DrugPlace and Lilly stopped after the drug manufacturer identified “significant concerns with DrugPlace’s prescription-level and rebate data.”
However, DrugPlace continued to claim rebates from Lilly through a series of intermediaries that concealed its identity, the lawsuit said.
DrugPlace and Community Health are listed as defendants along with DrugPlace’s co-owners, Paul Joshua Leight and Kevin Michael Singer. Christianity Today could not reach DrugPlace for comment, and Community Health Initiative did not respond.
Eli Lilly said in a statement to CNBC that it “brought this case to stop fraud and protect patients’ access to its medicines.”
“When the defendants learned that they had been discovered, DrugPlace shuttered its Nashville pharmacy and began liquidating assets—conduct consistent with covering its tracks,” the statement said.
Among other things, the company is asking the court to order restitution for the unwarranted rebates it says it has paid.
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