Los Angeles Jury Convicts Defendant of Fraud Involving More Than $1.1 Million in False Billing t...(d the wheelchairs for which Pacific City...),Health

Date:9/22/2008

d the wheelchairs for which Pacific City billed Medicare. The evidence also showed that some beneficiaries were not even able to use a wheelchair. For instance, one beneficiary, who is blind, testified that he could not see to operate the wheelchair and could not carry it up and down the steps to his apartment. Another beneficiary testified about the aggressive techniques used to recruit her and her husband into the fraudulent scheme. She testified that an individual purporting to be from Medicare, but who was actually revealed to be associated with the defendant, threatened that her and her husband's benefits would be taken away if they did not accept two unnecessary motorized wheelchairs, which can cost up to $7,000 per chair.

The evidence at trial also included testimony from Los Angeles-area physicians whose purported prescriptions were used to justify the bills to Medicare. The physicians testified that the prescriptions bearing their names were phony in that they were for patients they had never seen, for diagnoses outside their area of specialty, and in writing that was not their own. One doctor, a psychiatrist, testified that he had never written a DME prescription for a power wheelchair during his career.

This case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Jonathan Baum, Special Trial Attorney Spencer Turnbull and Senior Trial Attorney John S. (Jay) Darden of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section, with the investigative assistance of the California Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General.

The Medicare Fraud Strike Force (MFSF) is led by Kirk Ogrosky, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section in Washington, D.C., and the office of U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien of the Central District of California. Since the inception of MFSF operations in 2007, federal prosecutors have indicted 103 cases with 175 defendants in both Los Angeles and Miami. Collectively, these defenda
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SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice Copyright©2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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