NEW YORK, July 8 (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered CVS

Health's ( CVS ) Omnicare unit to pay $948.8 million in

penalties and damages, in a whistleblower lawsuit claiming it

fraudulently billed the U.S. government for invalid drug

prescriptions.

In a Monday evening order, U.S. District Judge Colleen

McMahon in Manhattan imposed a $542-million penalty for filing

3,342,032 false claims between 2010 and 2018.

McMahon also awarded $406.8 million of damages, representing

three times the $135.6 million that a jury awarded on April 29.

The tripling was required under the federal False Claims

Act, which lets whistleblowers sue on behalf of the federal

government and share in recoveries.

CVS plans to appeal the judgment. The Woonsocket, Rhode

Island-based drugstore chain and pharmacy benefits manager

bought Omnicare in 2015. Omnicare has asked McMahon to throw out

the case or grant a new trial.

"This lawsuit centered on a highly technical prescription

dispensing recordkeeping issue that was allowed by law in many

states," CVS said in a statement on Tuesday. "There was no claim

in this case that any patient paid for a medication they

shouldn't have or that any patient was harmed."

The lawsuit was filed in 2015 by Uri Bassan, a former Omnicare

pharmacist in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and joined by the federal

government in 2019.

They said Omnicare improperly billed Medicare, Medicaid, and

Tricare, which serves military personnel, for prescriptions for

tens of thousands of patients in assisted-living facilities,

group homes for people with special needs, and other long-term

care facilities.

Omnicare allegedly assigned new prescription numbers without

necessary paperwork and pharmacist approvals, after the original

prescriptions expired or ran out of refills.

McMahon rejected CVS' argument that a $948.8-million award

violated the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against excessive

fines under the Eighth Amendment.

"This was a very big fraud on the government, one that

lasted over almost a decade, and one that Omnicare was aware of

but avoided taking steps to correct," the judge wrote.

McMahon found CVS jointly liable with Omnicare for $164.8

million of the penalties, after jurors found it failed to stop

Omnicare from submitting 30% of the false claims after buying

that company. CVS itself did not submit any claims.

The case is U.S. ex rel Bassan v. Omnicare Inc, U.S.

District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-04179.