Eskridge sentenced Gonzales to 30 months on a kickback plea. Restitution is part of that judgment.

A sentence after a guilty plea is the end of the trial phase on that conspiracy count. A multi-million-dollar restitution figure is part of the judgment, not a new charge. On Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, Chief U.S. District Judge Charles Eskridge sentenced Henry Allen Gonzales, 53, of Willis, Texas, to 30 months in federal prison and one year of supervised release for conspiring to pay and receive health care kickbacks, and ordered more than $49 million in restitution to the Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs. He pleaded guilty on June 30, 2022, and Friday imposed that sentence rather than opening a new count.

Gonzales owned and operated Option 1 Pain & Rehab Clinic, formerly Direct Medical Clinic. The Southern District of Texas said he received more than $2 million in kickbacks from Rayford ACP Pharmacy for directing prescriptions for expensive compounded medications to that pharmacy. He admitted paying marketers to recruit DOL-OWCP claimants and bribing doctors to sign prescriptions for the compounded medications. The Southern District said that after the Rayford arrangement, he opened Farmacia and continued billing the program. From 2015 through 2018, Rayford ACP Pharmacy and Farmacia received approximately $49,014,183.03 in DOL-OWCP claims involving medically unnecessary compounded medications, as the Department described those claims. Kickbacks, paid marketers, and bribes to doctors are what he admitted. The medically unnecessary character of the billed medications is the Department's description of the claims tied to that loss. The restitution number is the judgment on the plea. It is not a new fraud count filed in September.

The court noted the loss to DOL-OWCP in imposing the sentence. The Southern District said Gonzales may remain free on bond until he voluntarily surrenders to a Bureau of Prisons facility to be designated. Bond until surrender is release status. It is not time already served, and it is not a dismissal. Tronown Thomas, the pharmacist and owner of Rayford ACP Pharmacy, was convicted on July 11, 2026, of conspiracy to pay health care kickbacks after a five-day trial. That is a related file. It is not this sentence.