By Shawn Hogendorf

Staff Writer

Christopher Smith, 27, of Prior Lake, was sentenced to 30 years in prison and five years of supervised release after serving his sentence by U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Davis in federal court in Minneapolis on Wednesday afternoon. Smith was also sentenced to serve six months concurrently to his sentence for a civil matter.

Smith was found guilty of nine counts, including conspiracy and illegal distribution of prescription drugs that were sold through his Internet company, Xpress Pharmacy Direct, based in Burnsville on Nov. 22.

In August 2005, Smith was charged by a federal grand jury with one count of conspiracy to distribute and dispense a controlled substance, four counts of wire fraud, three counts of unlawful distribution and dispensing of a controlled substance, five counts of introducing misbranded drugs into the interstate commerce and one count of money laundering.

Smith provided prescription drugs without ensuring that customers had valid prescriptions, according to the indictment.

He obtained orders for prescription drugs through spam e-mails, Internet sites and telemarketing call centers in Burnsville, Canada and the Dominican Republic.

Throughout the conspiracy, which ran from January of 2004 to June 2005, Xpress customers paid more than $24 million for 74,000 prescriptions.

In March 2006, Smith was also charged with one count of conspiracy to tamper with a witness and one count of endeavoring to obstruct justice by the federal grand jury while he was being held in the Sherburne County Jail in Elk River.

According to the indictment, while Smith was in jail, he allegedly made phone calls to telephone numbers not associated with his defense team. The calls were monitored and recorded by jail officials. In these phone calls, Smith allegedly conspired to kill a witness, who was expected to testify against him at trial.  

Smith awaits a second trial for those charges.

 Shawn Hogendorf can be reached at (952) 345-6374 or shogendorf@swpub.com.