Clearwater Criminal Defense Law Blog

Five Tampa Bay-area pharmacists have been charged with defrauding the federal government and stealing from Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare, the military insurance program, by submitting fraudulent reimbursement requests for prescriptions never filled.Federal prosecutors allege Jatin Patel submitted false reimbursement requests from his pharmacy in Clearwater and that two other pharmacists, Rajnish Mehta and Satender Singh, provided him with forged prescriptions to support the claims.Patel later told investigators that he submitted those claims for $260,000 and split the money with Mehta and...

A California jury last week found a Los Angeles doctor guilty of conspiracy in relation to allegations that he was involved in a Medicare kickback scheme with a local home health care agency.Prosecutors say Dr. Kanagasabai Kanakeswaran, M.D., was engaged in a conspiracy to refer Medicare patients to the home health care firm Star Home Health Resources in exchange for payments both directly to him in cash and by check to his firm Digital Perfection Corporation.Per the government, Star submitted claims to Medicare that were derived from patients sent to them by Kanakeswaran, with Star...

Federal prosecutors say the owner of a quartet of pharmacies in New York City submitted millions of dollars in false claims involving drugs that were not medically necessary or even disbursed to Medicare and Medicaid over the course of several years.Last Monday, Aleah Mohammed, aka "Aleah Haniff," was arraigned in a federal court in Brooklyn on an indictment charging her with submitting false claims to Medicare Part D and Medicaid for drugs through her drug stores, namely Superdrugs Inc., Superdrugs I Inc., Superdrugs II Inc., and S&A Superdrugs II Inc.Per the indictment, from the spring...

A Federal jury found three Houston individuals guilty of committing $17 million in Medicare fraud last week at the conclusion of a six-day trial.John P. Ramirez, M.D., Ann Nwoko Shepherd, and Yvette Nwoko were convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud at the conclusion of a trial in the chambers of U.S. District Judge David Hittner of the Southern District of Texas. In addition to a single count of health care fraud, Nwoko was found guilty on three more counts of health care fraud, Shepherd was handed a guilty verdict on six additional counts of health care fraud, and...

An alleged scheme to defraud Medicare of $1 million earned a Detroit podiatrist over two years in federal prison last week.U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy of the Eastern District of Michigan sentenced Lawrence Young, D.P.M. to 28 months in federal custody after his guilty plea earlier this year on a single count of health care fraud.Federal investigators say Young submitted false claims to Medicare between early 2010 and the spring of last year for the application of a specific surgical dressing that he knew was never utilized. Young allegedly billed Medicare the dressing, which is...