Exclusive: Trump administration claims another scalp in war on fraud — this time, a Texas pill-pusher



Scores of individuals were indicted during the first Trump administration for their involvement in a network of "pill mill" clinics — operations that diverted millions of oxycodone, hydrocodone, and carisoprodol pills with the help of health care professionals evidently eager to endanger public health to make a quick buck.

The current administration, which has significantly ramped up its fraud crackdown, has delivered one of the participants in this scheme to justice.

The Justice Department revealed in an exclusive to Blaze News on Monday that three days earlier, a federal jury in the Southern District of Texas convicted Barbara Marino — a 65-year-old resident of Tomball who served as the sole prescribing physician at Angels Clinica in Houston — of one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and four counts of distributing a controlled substance.

Marino faces more than 20 years in prison for each of the five counts.

"Medical physicians who exploit their prescribing authority for profit over patient care break an inherent trust with their patients, and we will hold them accountable," said Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the DOJ's National Fraud Enforcement Division in a statement. "The Department of Justice remains committed to protecting the public from dangerous and unlawful distribution of controlled substances, especially when the drug dealer is a doctor."

Marino, who was first licensed to practice medicine in the Lone Star State in 1990, was found to have unlawfully distributed over 1 million pills of opioids and other controlled substances through the strip-mall clinic in Houston where her practice was based.

Angels Clinica in Houston has since permanently closed. Angels Medical, which is linked to the now-defunct Houston clinic, did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

RELATED: James Comey indictment goes beyond infamous '86 47' seashell post, covers full 'body of evidence,' Blanche says

John Moore/Getty Images

The original indictment against Marino said that of the roughly 1.06 million controlled-substance pills for which she issued prescriptions between September 2018 and August 2019, 518,000 were hydrocodone pills, 65,000 were oxycodone pills, and approximately 416,000 were carisoprodol pills.

Many of the purported patients who obtained prescriptions from Marino's cash-only clinic were effectively drug mules sent her way by traffickers who subsequently peddled the drugs on the street, according to court documents and evidence presented at trial.

This grift proved lucrative.

The Justice Department claimed that Marino — who is supposedly an addiction specialist — received over $400,000 from Angels Clinica's owners both for writing prescriptions that lacked a legitimate medical purpose and for doing so outside the usual course of professional practice.

Evidence shown at trial suggested that Marino rarely if ever encountered a patient for whom she wouldn't prescribe dangerous and addictive drugs.

In one instance, she reportedly prescribed what the DOJ characterized as a "dangerous cocktail of hydrocodone and carisoprodol" — apparently one ingredient short of the so-called "Houston Cocktail" — to a pregnant woman in her third trimester. The woman's OB-GYN testified that the drugs had threatened the well-being of both the mother and her unborn child.

The DOJ highlighted another case exemplifying Marino's willingness to give practically anyone hard drugs, specifically a mentally compromised patient — a diagnosed bipolar schizophrenic who suffered from the chronic delusion that he was President Richard Nixon — to whom she allegedly prescribed her dangerous cocktail on at least three occasions.

Drug Enforcement Administration Assistant Administrator Cheri Oz, whose agency investigated this case, stated, "Patients put their trust and their lives into the hands of our medical and health care professionals.

"The highly addictive, dangerous misused drugs in this case — oxycodone and hydrocodone — are meant to treat pain, not cause it," continued Oz. "DEA remains relentless in our pursuit of those who poison our communities and exploit our health care system, all to line their own pockets with the profit from others' pain."

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Pregnant woman reveals method to make her unborn son gay — and progressive moms cheer



A very disturbing TikTok video has gone viral after a pregnant woman recorded herself playing ABBA songs to make her unborn son gay — while thousands of mothers cheered her on in the comments and across social media.

The video shows her blasting the lyrics “Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight” next to her stomach.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is shocked to read the comments, which include things like, “My son is 4 and exclusively listens to Sabrina Carpenter. Hopes are very high for him being gay.”

“My son just officially came out a few months ago,” reads another comment with a cheering emoji.


Another one reads, “My son was born to ‘Dancing Queen.’ I have high hopes for him.”

“This is disgusting that you are thinking about your child’s sexuality,” Stuckey says.

“It’s a horrible thing to wish on someone. It is. Now, I’m a Christian, and I believe that homosexuality is a sin, OK. But I also think that it’s bad for society to encourage this kind of thing,” she continues.

“We should be encouraging our boys to be strong and to be brave and to be protectors and to be fighters and to rein their masculine energy into good things. Yes, and you can call that old-fashioned, but it’s true,” she adds.

Stuckey likens these mothers’ hopes for gay sons to “conversion therapy” and calls it “very, very grotesque.”

“I talk about this concept of what I call ‘toxic mommy culture’ in my book, ‘You’re Not Enough (and That’s Okay)’ — when moms make their feelings and their validation and their social image the highest priority and they project that onto their kids and they use their children as props to perform this, like, progressivism on social media for likes, affirmation, cultural approval,” Stuckey says.

“I just find this little thing that this mother is doing gross. ... Kids are always the unconsenting subjects of progressive social experiments,” she continues. “It’s not good.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Horrific crash in LA: Cars burst into flames, killing 6, including infant, pregnant woman, and unborn baby
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Horrific crash in LA: Cars burst into flames, killing 6, including infant, pregnant woman, and unborn baby



A horrific car crash in Los Angeles, California, left six people dead and sent eight people, including the driver, to the hospital.

At approximately 1:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, a black Mercedes-Benz speeding down South La Brea Avenue, going at least 50 mph, ran a red light at Slauson Avenue and crashed into several cars. Some of the cars burst into flames and slammed into a gas station sign on the corner.

The crash was caught on a CCTV camera. WARNING: The video is graphic.



Witnesses at the gas station reported a terrifying scene of fire and debris. Even some of the victims of the crash were ejected from their vehicle. Veronica Esquivel was trying to pump gas when the crash occurred.

"I was about to pump gas and all of a sudden, I hear all of the noises from all of the collisions, and then the fire explosion, and I saw things, metal and things flying in the air. So, I just covered myself behind the pump," Esquivel told reporters.

What Esquivel described next is heartbreaking.

"All of the sudden, a baby literally flew from the middle of the intersection to the middle of the gas station and landed right on the floor in front of me," Esquival said. "One of the workers came and saw me with the baby and took the baby out of my hands. … Somebody tried to resuscitate the baby, but the baby was gone."

Another witness, Alphonso Word, said, "I think the devastating part was you heard the scream. I don’t know if it was one of the victims that was in the car burning, or what."

Police initially reported that five had died in the crash, but during their investigations later that evening, they discovered yet another body in one of the charred vehicles.

Eight other people were taken to the hospital, most with minor injuries. Two of them are adults, and six are children, ranging in age from 13 months to 15 years old. Their names and their conditions remain unknown.

One woman who was taken to the hospital with serious injuries is the driver of the Mercedes-Benz. Police have spoken with her to try to understand what happened. The driver has not been named, but reports say that she is in her 40s. She has been charged with vehicular homicide and gross negligence.

“Just unknown reasons for the high speed at this time,” California Highway Patrol spokesman Franco Pepi said.

“Everyone needs to drive with more due regard because a lot of collisions happen, and this just happens to be at the top of the list of how bad they can get.”

The intersection of La Brea and Slauson is located in Windsor Hills, approximately ten miles from downtown Los Angeles.

Pregnant woman who was injured during Russian bombing in Mariupol has died — her baby is also dead



An injured pregnant woman who was evacuated last week after a maternity hospital was bombed in Ukraine has passed away, according to the Associated Press, which also reported that the woman's baby is dead.

Disturbing video footage shows the woman lying on the stretcher as people moved her in the wake of the attack.

Russia attacks Ukrainian hospital in Mariupol www.youtube.com


She was transported to a different hospital, the AP noted — realizing that she was losing her child, medics said that the woman declared, "Kill me now!"

The AP reported that Dr. Timur Marin said that the mother had suffered a crushed pelvis and detached hip. The child was delivered through a cesarean section but manifested "no signs of life," he noted. He said that "more than 30 minutes of resuscitation of the mother didn’t produce results." He said that, "Both died."

Another pregnant woman survived, but lost some toes due to the attack — she underwent a cesarean section, but the AP reported that her baby was alive.

The news comes as Russia wreaks death and destruction in Ukraine, a sovereign nation that has been fighting to defend itself during Russia's brutal onslaught.

Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall was also injured while covering the events unfolding in Ukraine.

"Earlier today, our correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured while newsgathering outside of Kyiv in Ukraine," Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott noted in a statement on Monday. "We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalized and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information as the situation quickly unfolds."

Taliban reportedly kicks pregnant American in stomach as she tries to evacuate Kabul. She is still trapped there and in hiding.



Taliban militants kicked a pregnant American in the stomach as she tried to evacuate Kabul, Afghanistan, with her husband and father — and she's still trapped there and in hiding, Fox News reported.

'Kicked in the stomach'

Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt on Tuesday spoke to Republican U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California about the pregnant woman he called "Nasria," who never made it aboard an aircraft and out of danger.

"She was kicked in the stomach, but she was kicked in the stomach well after — as she got through the first checkpoint where she remained for hours, waiting for those people at the south point to supposedly come out and get her," Issa told the cable network. "It wasn't until it was clear they'd closed, [that] they weren't taking anyone else for quite a while, that finally she accepted that she was going to have to go back and hide in her apartment."

The congressman also told Fox News that "Nasria" made "multiple trips" to the airport before U.S. forces departed.

Issa added to Earhardt that about three hours prior to their interview his team had been attempting to arrange a "possible alternative" way out of the country but that a "third party" would be involved and that it was nixed for being "too dangerous."

"We've agreed that she's going to stay sheltered in place, hiding her identity and hoping that her friends will continue to bring her food and keep her secret until frankly we can come up with something new," he also told Fox News, adding that "we know her exact location but literally are afraid to even have a conversation about a rendezvous until we know where and when somebody could meet her."

Earhardt asked Issa if that fear was due to others possibly listening to phone calls, and he replied affirmatively.

"The Russians have already come in, as have the Chinese. Once you control a phone system — the ability to find out where every cell is and who owns it — they have that data now," the congressman told Fox News. "So anyone who wants to remain unknown has to switch phones, turn them off, use all the techniques that you would use if you were in survival, escape, and evasion."

He added that while the Taliban's intentions aren't known, it helps to remember that "the president made an agreement and kept an agreement with a terrorist group that was responsible for harboring those who [attacked] us on 9/11, and then didn't keep his promise to the American people."

Issa also offered the grim reality that after U.S. diplomats moved to Qatar, "there's no longer any diplomatic mission in Kabul. So the idea that either military or diplomatic is going to work is hoping that a terrorist group — still with relations with other terrorist groups — somehow is going to help us get Americans out."

'These people were stranded'

The congressman also declared that "anyone" who says U.S. leaders "didn't break a promise to the American people and [left] people behind is wrong. Anyone who says that there aren't people stranded is wrong. These people were stranded; they did everything they were supposed to do, and they simply were not a priority at the end."

Five-months-pregnant woman stabbed in back by stranger while walking nature trail with her 3-year-old son — and undergoes emergency C-section



A woman who was stabbed by a stranger while walking on a suburban Atlanta nature trail with her 3-year-old son Saturday was five months pregnant and needed an emergency C-section, police told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The paper said the woman, 34, and her baby are both stable and expected to survive, citing Brookhaven Lt. David Snively. The 3-year-old was not injured, the Journal-Constitution added.

The baby is expected to stay in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit "for several months, and the victim is expected to be in the hospital for several more days," Snively added, the paper said.

Arrest made

Police on Thursday morning arrested suspect Christopher Jones, a homeless man familiar to police who has a history of mental illness, the paper said in a separate story.

Here's an image of the suspect police posted to Facebook Monday, along with a description of the violent incident:

What happened?

The woman was walking with her 3-year-old son on the Peachtree Creek Greenway around 5:30 p.m when the suspect tried to talk to her, police said.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

But when she tried to walk away, the suspect stabbed her in the back several times with a pocket knife and then fled toward Corporate Boulevard, WAGA-TV reported.

"From everything we can tell, this is a completely unprovoked attack," Snively told the Journal-Constitution, adding that the victim lives in Brookhaven. "I recognize that's probably the scariest of the possible explanations... We're very troubled by what led up to this because this is one of those cases where it appears the victim did everything right."

Snively added to the paper that the incident "was not ugly" or profane until it escalated to violence. Police added that the suspect was wearing a white tank top, long, dark shorts, and a dark colored hat with the word "DOPE" written in multi-color letters.

Fundraising underway for medical expenses

A friend of the victim set up a GoFundMe page to cover medical expenses, as the victim and her baby "have a long road ahead of them and a very prolonged hospital stay."

As of Thursday afternoon, the GoFundMe has raised nearly $71,000 of its $80,000 goal.

gofundme for woman stabbed on the peachtree creek greenway in Brookhaven https://t.co/Ro6gch8GaK

— TalesofGA400 (@TGa400) 1623178859.0

The fundraising page also says the victim is a teacher and that her baby is boy.

Here's a video report that aired prior to the suspect's arrest: