Clearwater Criminal Defense Law Blog

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...

A federal judge sentenced a Houston psychiatrist to over a dozen years in prison last week after being convicted of defrauding Medicare of over $155 million.According to federal prosecutors, Riyaz Mazcuri submitted a series of false claims via Riverside General Hospital, where he was an attending psychiatrist, for six years beginning in 2006. They say he submitted claims for partial hospitalization program (PHP) services, which is an intensive outpatient treatment reserved for patients with severe mental illness.Per investigators, Mazcuri also assigned such treatment to patients with mental...