Eli Lilly says it has uncovered a long-running scheme to steal more than $200 million in rebates for its diabetes drug, Trulicity, by accusing several bishops of a major Pentecostal church of fraud.
The company filed a 66-page civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Miami on Tuesday.
Here's how the scheme worked, according to Lilly: A Florida mail-order pharmacy called DrugPlace purchased large quantities of Trulicity for years through authorized distributors, claiming that the drugs were dispensed to patients who were members of the church. But Lilly alleges that DrugPlace actually sold Trulicity on the secondary market while collecting fraudulent rebates from Lilly.
According to the lawsuit, DrugPlace worked with the Community Health Initiative, an organization affiliated with the Church of God in Christ that allegedly helped church members obtain expensive prescription medications at a reduced cost. Lilly alleges that DrugPlace acted as the program's pharmacy benefit manager, or PBM, handling prescription drug claims and reimbursement negotiations with drug manufacturers on behalf of the program.
DrugPlace and Community Health operate from the same address in Tennessee, according to the lawsuit.
Lilly alleges that the organizations used members of the Church of God in Christ to support false reimbursement claims and said many of the patients linked to those submissions did not exist or could not be verified.
The church, based in Memphis, Tennessee, describes itself on its website as a “global Pentecostal faith movement” with millions of members around the world. The church itself is not listed as a defendant, although several of its bishops are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
The plan has been in place for at least six years, Lilly said in the document. He learned of the alleged fraud in 2025, he said, through an analysis of claim data.
The complaint says the analysis revealed an unusual pattern: Every Trulicity prescription submitted through the program reflected the same quantity and 30-day supply period, with almost no refills or claim voids. Additionally, the reimbursement requests involved only Trulicity, rather than a broader range of medications typically seen in legitimate patient populations.
To justify Trulicity's volume request, Lilly said, DrugPlace claimed the church had 7 million members, 2.5 million of whom qualified to enroll in the Community Health program. But according to a Pew Religion in America 2025 survey cited in the complaint, the total number of members of the Church of God in Christ is estimated to be approximately 1.9 million people.
Other pharmaceutical manufacturers have also been defrauded in this rebate scheme, Lilly said, without naming them.
Lilly sued both DrugPlace and Community Health, alleging that they profited greatly from the purchase and resale of Trulicity because they collected both rebate payments and profits when they resold each box.
While the lawsuit says DrugPlace submitted reimbursement claims for “hundreds of thousands of boxes of Trulicity,” it does not state how much the organization allegedly profited from reselling the drug.
Lilly is seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction.
The company also sued church leaders who allegedly aided and benefited from the rebate scheme: Readus C. Smith III, of Jacksonville, Florida, who is the church's general secretary of health and business; Jerry Maynard Sr., of Ashland City, Tennessee, church bishop and businessman; his son Jerry Maynard II, of Nashville, Tennessee, a church pastor, business consultant and former member of the Metro Nashville Davidson Council; and Maynard Sr.'s daughter, Misha Maynard, of Watertown, Tennessee, a church pastor.
The lawsuit identifies Smith as CEO of Community Health, as well as another company that hires doctors to provide medical care to church members.
Maynard Sr. promoted Community Health to church members, according to the lawsuit, and his son is the chairman of the board and worked legal for DrugPlace. Misha Maynard is the vice president of operations for Community Health, according to the document.
CNBC reached out to the individual defendants named in this article, as well as DrugPlace and Community Health, but did not receive a response.
In a public statement issued Wednesday, the Church of God in Christ said it had “no knowledge of the acts alleged in the lawsuit. The Church has not knowingly participated in, authorized, or condoned any of the alleged fraudulent activities described in the lawsuit.”
The church said it will cooperate with Eli Lilly and any appropriate authorities regarding the case.
The lawsuit also names Paul Joshua Leight, co-owner and president of DrugPlace; and Kevin Michael Singer, co-owner and vice president of DrugPlace.
In a statement to CNBC, a Lilly spokesperson said the company “brought this case to stop fraud and protect patients' access to their medications.”
“When the defendants learned they had been discovered, DrugPlace closed its Nashville pharmacy and began liquidating assets, conduct consistent with covering its tracks,” the statement said.
