The world’s most valuable pharmaceutical corporation has named Jerry L. Maynard Sr., a general board member of the Church of God in Christ and founder of Cathedral of Praise in Nashville, Tennessee, in a lawsuit accusing him, his son, his daughter and others of engaging in a rebate fraud scheme that allegedly robbed the company of more than $200 million.
In the 66-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on May 19, Eli Lilly and Company accuses Maynard Sr.; his son, Jerry L. Maynard II, senior pastor of Cathedral of Praise; his daughter, Pastor Misha Maynard; and Readus C. Smith III, COGIC’s secretary-general of health and business, along with several other interrelated defendants, of defrauding the company “under the guise of a massive ‘prescription cost share program’ for members of the Church of God in Christ.”
According to Eli Lilly, the defendants purchased large quantities of the diabetes drug Trulicity through a pharmacy they operate in Florida and Tennessee, called DrugPlace, which purports to deliver medications by mail. The GLP-1 drug also causes weight loss similar to Ozempic.
“After purchasing the medication, Defendants seek rebates from Lilly for purported utilization of the medication, filtering the rebate claims through a series of intermediaries. In doing so, Defendants represent that the medication has been dispensed to patients — a necessary condition to qualify for rebates,” the lawsuit states.
The defendants allegedly represented to the company that they filled and processed tens of thousands of Trulicity prescriptions for Church members each year and collected rebates for those claims.
In 2025, however, the company said it discovered that the defendants had allegedly been defrauding it since at least 2020 through fictitious rebate claims.
“Defendants do not dispense to patients anything near the volume of Trulicity that they claim. The vast majority of the prescriptions, dispenses, utilization, and patients identified in these rebate submissions are fictional,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, Defendants resell this medication to pharmaceutical wholesalers on the secondary market. Defendants then falsely represent to Lilly, through intermediaries, that the resold Trulicity has been dispensed to patients in order to fraudulently cause Lilly to pay rebates.”
Eli Lilly said in the complaint that the church leaders and their alleged accomplices are also defrauding other pharmaceutical companies and asked the court to stop the scheme and require the defendants to pay damages.
“At bottom, the prescription cost share program, and Defendants’ entire businesses, are fronts for their fraudulent rebate scheme. Through this scheme, Defendants have defrauded Lilly out of more than $200 million. Defendants are similarly defrauding other pharmaceutical manufacturers as well,” the complaint states.
“Without this Court’s intervention, Defendants’ fraud will continue to grow at Lilly’s expense, leaving lasting damage to Lilly’s relationships with its business counterparties involved in the rebate program and draining resources from Lilly’s development of critical medications. Lilly seeks injunctive relief to put a stop to this expanding fraudulent scheme, and to obtain damages for the harm Defendants’ scheme has inflicted.”
Neither COGIC nor Cathedral of Praise immediately responded to The Christian Post’s requests for comment on Thursday. Maynard II, however, told WTVF that he had no involvement in the alleged scheme.
“Although I have not yet been served with a lawsuit, I am aware that I have been named in litigation filed by Eli Lilly. I categorically deny any involvement in, or knowledge of, any illegal scheme or improper conduct alleged in their complaint,” he said.
“I have never served as legal counsel for, sat on the board of, or participated in the management of any entity accused of wrongdoing in this matter. I intend to vigorously defend myself against these allegations and address these allegations through the appropriate legal process.”
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