PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, JANICE K. FEDARCYK, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), RAYMOND W. KELLY, the Police Commissioner of the City of New York (“NYPD”), THOMAS O’DONNELL, the Special Agent in Charge of the New York Office of the Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), and BENJAMIN M. LAWSKY, the Superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (“NY DFS”), announced today the unsealing of three separate Indictments, charging 24 defendants with health care fraud. Two of the indictments charge a total of 22 defendants with participating in fraudulent billing scams that caused no-fault insurance carriers to pay out millions of dollars in reimbursements for medical treatments that were never provided to patients or that were medically unnecessary. Among the individuals charged today are (i) doctors who faked ownership of medical clinics located in Brooklyn and Queens to conceal that the clinics’ true owners and operators were non-medical professionals; (ii) these same “front” doctors and other medical practitioners and clinic employees who caused the submission of fraudulent bills to insurance companies for treatments that were not medically necessary, that were not provided at all, and/or that were not provided as billed; (iii) “runners” who were paid to recruit patients to the clinics; and (iv) patients who faked and exaggerated their injuries from automobile accidents, and who received coaching from the clinics’ employees about their supposed injuries. The third indictment unsealed today charges two operators of a medical supply company with orchestrating a billing scam targeting Medicare and Medicaid in which the defendants allegedly forged doctors’ signatures and prescriptions to support fraudulent billings to Medicare and Medicaid for millions of dollars in durable medical equipment—such as motorized wheelchairs—that was never supplied to patients.
Twenty-two of the 24 charged defendants were taken into custody this morning and were arraigned in Manhattan federal court this afternoon. One defendant, RUBIN KAYKOV, has previously been arrested on a complaint. The last defendant, ILYA SLEPAK, remains at large. Six search warrants were executed and 10 accounts were frozen in connection with today’s arrests.
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