LOS ANGELES—The owner of a medical equipment company has pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to defrauding Medicare by using a patient’s identification number without the person’s knowledge.
Melkon Gabriyelyan, the owner of TA Medical Supply, pleaded guilty Thursday to aggravated identity theft and health care fraud.
The U.S. district attorney’s office says Gabriyelyan stole the identity of a Medicare beneficiary to submit false claims for orthotic Read the rest of this entry »
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Los Angeles hospital CEO has pleaded guilty to two counts of paying for illegal patient referrals in a scheme that billed government programs for unnecessary care given to homeless people.
Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, who previously ran City of Angels Medical Center, entered his pleas Friday. Each count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
He also agreed to pay more than $4.1 million in restitution to Read the rest of this entry »
A Payson doctor pleaded guilty Tuesday to giving two female patients prescriptions in return for sex.
After months of negotiation between attorneys, Max Kent Cannon, 49, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of distributing a controlled substance, a third-degree felony, and two counts of prostitution, a class B misdemeanor. As part of the plea deal, eight more counts of the same charges were dismissed.
As part of the agreement, Read the rest of this entry »
To his bosses at TOP Food & Drugs, he was a model of efficiency — even getting named Pharmacy Manager of the Year.
But Milton Cheung’s profitable pharmacy in Edmonds turned out to be too profitable.
Federal prosecutors say the Lynnwood man ran a prescription drug scam that involved repackaging unused — and sometimes expired — medicine collected under the guise of helping the needy overseas. Instead, authorities say, he sold the old drugs as Read the rest of this entry »
By Andrew M. Harris
Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) — P.
, a former Bear
Stearns Cos. managing director, pleaded guilty to a fraud charge
for his role in helping two men advance a plot to win a Chicago-
area hospital construction contract.
Hurtgen, 46, of Glencoe, Illinois, entered his plea to
aiding and abetting wire fraud today before U.S. District Judge
in federal court in Chicago. A trial had been
scheduled to start March 9. Prosecutors agreed to Read the rest of this entry »
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former hospital executive admitted Friday he paid a man to recruit homeless people for unnecessary medical treatment in a scheme to bilk government health programs out of millions of dollars.
Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, who ran City of Angels Medical Center, faces up to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to paying a recruiter nearly $500,000 to find Skid Row homeless people with Medi-Cal or Medicare cards and Read the rest of this entry »
LONDON (AP) — A British couple who sold video footage of singer Amy Winehouse apparently smoking crack to a newspaper have pleaded guilty to drug charges.
Johnny Blagrove and Cara Burton admitted in court Friday they offered to supply drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, to Winehouse.
Prosecutors say the pair covertly filmed Winehouse and sold the footage to The Sun newspaper. In January the paper published the images, which appeared to Read the rest of this entry »
A Saugus man yesterday pleaded guilty in federal court to charges that he sold New England Patriots lineman Nick Kaczur about 300 OxyContin pills.
Daniel Ekasala, 35, entered a guilty plea to charges that were based on three transactions between the two that were secretly recorded by the US Drug Enforcement Administration in May.
Kaczur is not named in court records in Ekasala’s case, but has been identified as the cooperating witness by Ekasala’s Read the rest of this entry »
A former Maryland employee pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing more than $1.7 million from the Maryland
in a decade-long payment processing scheme.
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said Donna McRae Lam was convicted of felony theft in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City after entering her guilty plea. Sentencing for Lam, 50, is scheduled for Feb. 11, 2009.
A state investigation uncovered a scheme that involved processing patient Read the rest of this entry »
Gabriyelyan was arrested in May 2008 following an investigation by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force (MFSF). The MFSF is a multi-agency team of federal, state and local prosecutors and agents designed to combat Medicare fraud. Strike force operations began in the Los Angeles area on March 1, 2008. The MFSF is led by 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 Read the rest of this entry »