Posted on 07/20/2009 4:47:39 PM PDT by Larry381
A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted the owners and operators of a Los Angeles-area durable medical equipment company of Medicare fraud, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Thomas P. O’Brien; and Glenn R. Ferry, Special Agent-in-Charge for the Los Angeles Region of the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health of Human Services announced today.
After a one-week trial in federal court in Los Angeles, the jury found Gevork Kartashyan, 45, guilty of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and health care fraud; and Eliza Shurabalyan, 42, guilty of health care fraud. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the Central District of Los Angeles scheduled sentencing for Oct. 5, 2009.
Shubaralyan and Kartashyan owned and operated CHH Medical Supply, a durable medical equipment (DME) supply company. Between January 2005 and June 2008, Shubaralyan and Kartashyan, through CHH Medical Supply, billed Medicare $949,859, and were paid $597,750. Virtually all of these bills were for medically unnecessary power wheelchairs and wheelchair accessories.
At trial, elderly Medicare beneficiaries testified about how they were recruited and taken to Los Angeles-area medical clinics. At the clinics, the beneficiaries turned over their Medicare numbers and other personal identifying information. Some were promised vitamins, diabetic shoes, and other items that they never received. The clinics were in the business of generating fraudulent power wheelchair prescriptions that could be sold to DME company owners who would bill Medicare for the wheelchairs. Many of the beneficiaries did not know they were getting a wheelchair until it was delivered to them by CHH Medical Supply. All of the beneficiaries testified that they did not need or use the wheelchair.
Five physicians testified that they never authorized or approved the power wheelchair prescriptions written under their names, often by physician’s assistants. Three of these physicians testified that they never even worked at the clinics listed on phony prescription pads.
A government witness, who recently pleaded guilty to health care fraud in connection with one of the clinics at issue in this case, testified that Kartashyan would regularly come into the office where he and others worked in order to pick up power wheelchair prescriptions that he had purchased. Upon delivery, Kartashyan would then generate phony forms stating that the beneficiaries’ homes were appropriate for the use of a power wheelchair, even though no home assessment was done.
Shubaralyan, who was the listed owner of CHH Medical Supply, submitted all of the company’s claims to Medicare. Power wheelchairs and accessories constituted over 98 percent of the company’s billings to Medicare. In addition, Shubaralyan withdrew over $195,000 in cash from the company’s bank account in order to purchase the power wheelchair prescriptions.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant Chief John S. (Jay) Darden and Trial Attorney Jonathan Baum of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, with the investigative assistance of the FBI. The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force. Federal Prosecutors have indicted 115 cases with 257 defendants in Miami, Los Angeles, and Detroit since the inception of strike force operations in March 2007. Collectively, these defendants are alleged to have fraudulently billed the Medicare program for more than $600 million.
A drop in an ocean of fraud and waste.
Too much defraudin’ goin’ on out dar.
Russian mafiya organized crime.
REFERENCE----EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE TRI-STATE JOINT SOVIET-EMIGRE ORGANIZED CRIME PROJECT. RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME IN THE TRI-STATE AREA
Gangsters from the former Soviet Union have established a strong and abiding presence in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania region, engaging in a wide array of crimes that range from sophisticated financial frauds to narcotics trafficking to murder.
Evidence also shows that members of disparate Russian-emigre crime groups here have the potential to develop into one of the most formidable organized crime challenges to law enforcement since the advent of La Cosa Nostra.
These are among the key findings of the Tri-State JointSoviet-Emigre Organized Crime Project, a cooperative research andinvestigative effort launched four years ago by four agencies in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - the New York Organized Crime Task Force, the New York State Commission of Investigation,the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation and the Pennsylvania Crime Commission.
Investigative agents and staff from these agencies conducted the project in conjunction with criminal justice experts from Rutgers University. The Project's report presents the first comprehensive publicassessment of the threat posed to this region by criminal elements emanating from within the former Soviet Union.
The report catalogues the history and growth of Russian-emigre crime networks, from their core base in the Brighton Beachsection of Brooklyn to their current reach well beyond the New York metropolitan area into the counties of central New Jersey and the suburbs of Philadelphia.
One of the most troubling aspects is evidence of links between individuals here and criminal elements in the former Soviet Union, a phenomenon that lends a disturbing and complex international dimension to this emerging domestic law enforcement problem.The range of criminal and illicit activities linked to these groups is impressive.
The Project report details Russian-emigre involvement in a variety of highly sophisticated frauds and confidence schemes, financial crimes, including money laundering, counterfeiting and securities fraud, narcotics trafficking and an assortment of vice crimes.Russian-emigre criminals are no strangers to violence either.
THE NATURE OF RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME
Crimes of Deception
Motor Fuel Tax Fraud
Insurance and Entitlement Fraud
Confidence Schemes
Counterfeiting
Violent Crimes
Homicide/Attempted Homicide
Extortion and Kidnapping
Drug Trafficking
Money Laundering
Vice Crimes (Regpay, a Florida credit card processing company operated by Byelorussians, was nailed for processing online child porn payments; Minx, Belarus, once a constituent republic of the Soviet Union (independent since 1991) is the country of origin of many of these predators now thieving on US soil.
--SNIP--PDF LONG READ http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ahm0dOHcKHEJ:www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/russian.pdf
When it is the government’s money (not really as the government does not produce anything by paperwork), there are many who are willing to exploit and game the system. Which is why they paid $1.50 per pound of ham when they could have walked into a Food Lion and bought it off the shelves for 79 cents. No one looks to SAVE money when it come from Uncle Sam.
I see these mobile scooter commercials every night as they proudly proclaim that Medicare will pay 100% of the cost of these things. As bad as this scam is now try to imagine the horrendous disaster it will become if ObamaCare is passed.
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