SAN JOSE — A Sunnyvale man was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for distributing various prescription drugs through the same Indian telemarketing network that the former San Jose Police Officers Association executive director was busted for using, court records show.
Rajiv Agnihotri, 44, was sentenced on Nov. 25 by U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts. Prosecutors sought a prison term for Agnihotri, who they say imported tens of thousands of pills, including generic forms of Ambien and Xanax, through a network known as Durgapura Pharmacy in India that sold prescription medication online. It was the same network used by disgraced police union executive director Joanne …
SAN JOSE — A Sunnyvale man was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for distributing various prescription drugs through the same Indian telemarketing network that the former San Jose Police Officers Association executive director was busted for using, court records show.
Rajiv Agnihotri, 44, was sentenced on Nov. 25 by U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts. Prosecutors sought a prison term for Agnihotri, who they say imported tens of thousands of pills, including generic forms of Ambien and Xanax, through a network known as Durgapura Pharmacy in India that sold prescription medication online. It was the same network used by disgraced police union executive director Joanne Segovia, who pleaded guilty to importing painkillers last year, court records show.
But Segovia avoided prison or jail, instead receiving a three-year probation term and a court order to complete 100 hours of community service. Agnihotri’s lawyer argued the two cases were similar enough that Agnihotri shouldn’t receive more than 366 days in jail, arguing in a sentencing memo that Agnihotri made about $20 for every package of drugs he received in the mail and that he was basically trying to help Americans save money on their prescriptions.
“His conduct reflects the broader problem of limited access to affordable medication rather than a conventional drug enterprise,” Assistant Federal Public Defender Varell Fuller wrote in court filings. Fuller also argued that Agnihotri’s “severe childhood trauma” should earn him more mitigation, writing that he grew up amid “political violence” in India, witnessed domestic violence in his home, and was stabbed amid a political dispute as a young man.
Agnihotri came into the United States from Mexico through a “deadly jungle corridor” and got involved in the drug network when a co-worker offered him an opportunity to earn extra money by receiving and forwarding prescription medications,” the defense sentencing memo says. During the investigation, in 2022, drug agents intercepted hidden packages inside boxes of “Indian Sweet Snacks” and “sweet cookies, chocolates, snacks, and herbal toothpaste,” that contained 60,000 prescription pills.
Prosecutors countered that the network “sold a long list of abusable psychoactive drugs: Ambien, benzodiazepines, opioids like Tapentadol and Tramadol, muscle relaxants,” and said they found a grand total of five customers that Agnihotri was supplying. They also alleged that Agnihotri used a fake driver’s license to apply for a post office box and lied to investigators after his arrest, claiming he received “poppy seeds” and nothing more.
Segovia was found to have imported 17,400 doses of the opioid Tapentadol in a 17-month period between 2021 and 2022. Investigators state that in one instance, she used the police union’s UPS account to send an illicit package to a supplier in North Carolina. She was initially charged with fentanyl distribution based on a botched test of the substance, court records show.
A few days before she was charged, agents from Homeland Security Investigations reported seizing 283 Tapentadol pills from the police union’s headquarters in San Jose and 73 Tapentadol pills from from her home. The police union has said a third-party investigation found no evidence any union leaders or members knew about Segovia’s illegal activities. Segovia’s lawyer said in court filings that her crimes stemmed from her own drug addiction, not a desire to profit.
Staff writer Robert Salonga contributed to this report.