Justia White Collar Crime Opinion Summaries

In 2003, Congress created Health Savings Accounts to help people with high-deductible health plans save for health care costs by providing tax-preferred treatment for money saved for future medical expenses, 26 U.S.C. 223. Banas and others started a company that created a suite of software products that allowed savers to manage their Health Savings Accounts online. By 2009, the company had more than 100 employees. Venture capital and private equity firms thought the company was a solid investment and bought stock, but the company had provided counterfeit financial documents and had even “faked” customer calls. The owners started raiding clients’ Health Savings Accounts. By the time Banas and Blackburn were stopped, they had misappropriated more than $18,000,000 in client funds. Banas admitted his guilt, accepted responsibility for his actions, and has worked to secure some degree of restitution. The district judge sentenced Banas to 160 months of imprisonment for wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343, well below the Guidelines range. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, particularly noting the impact of the crime on victims. View "Unted States v. Banas" on Justia Law

A dialysis provider created a wholly-owned subsidiary, RCGSC, which supplied dialysis equipment for home use, to take advantage of the Medicare reimbursement scheme and increase profits. In 2005 former employees filed a qui tam action under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. 3729-33, alleging that RCGSC was not a legitimate and independent durable medical equipment supply company, but a “billing conduit” used to unlawfully inflate Medicare reimbursements. The United States intervened and the relators’ claim was voluntarily dismissed. The government alleged that defendants submitted claims, knowing that RCGSC was a sham corporation created solely for increasing Medicare reimbursements; knowing that RCGSC was not in compliance with Medicare rules and regulations; knowing that RCGSC was misleading patients over their right to choose between Method I and Method II reimbursements; and for facility support charges for services rendered to home dialysis patients who had selected Method II reimbursements. The government also brought common law theories of payment by mistake and unjust enrichment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the United States. The Sixth Circuit reversed on all counts and remanded some. Defendants did not act with reckless disregard of the alleged falsity of their submissions to Medicare.View "United States v. Renal Care Grp., Inc." on Justia Law

Tasis and his brother ran a sham medical clinic, recruited homeless Medicare recipients who had tested positive for HIV, hepatitis or asthma, paid the “patients” small sums in exchange for their insurance identification, then billed Medicare for infusion therapies that were never provided. During four months in 2006, the Center billed Medicare $2,855,785 and received $827,000 in return. The scheme lasted 15 months, during which Tasis and his collaborators submitted $9,122,159.35 in Medicare claims. An auditor notified the FBI. After an investigation, prosecutors indicted Tasis on fraud and conspiracy claims. Over Tasis’s objection, co-conspirator Martinez testified that she and Tasis had orchestrated a a similar scam in Florida. The court instructed the jury to consider Martinez’s testimony about the Florida conspiracy only as it related to Tasis’s “intent, plan and knowledge.” The jury found Tasis guilty, and the trial judge sentenced him to 78 months in prison and required him to pay $6,079,445.93 in restitution. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting various challenges to evidentiary rulings. View "United States v. Tasis" on Justia Law

Semrau, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, owned companies that provided psychiatric care to nursing home patients in Tennessee and Mississippi, using contracting psychiatrists who submitted records describing their work. The companies then billed the services to Medicare or Medicaid through private insurance carriers. Services are categorized into five-digit Current Procedural Terminology Codes, published by the American Medical Association. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sets reimbursement levels for each code as well as “relative value units” corresponding to the amount of work typically required for each service. After audits indicated that the companies had been billing at a higher rate than could be justified by the services actually performed, “upcoding,” Semrau was convicted of healthcare fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1347, and was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment and ordered to pay $245,435 in restitution. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting Semrau’s claim that results from a functional magnetic resonance imaging lie detection test should have been admitted to prove the veracity of his denials of wrongdoing. There was ample evidence that Semrau was aware of accepted definitions of the CPT codes; he expressly agreed not to “submit claims with deliberate ignorance or reckless disregard of their truth or falsity.” View "United States v. Semrau" on Justia Law

Appellants were executives at the Purdue Frederick Company when it misbranded the painkiller OxyContin a schedule II controlled substance. The Company was convicted of fraudulent misbranding, and the executives were convicted under the "responsible corporate officer" doctrine of the misdemeanor of misbranding a drug. Based upon their convictions, the Secretary of Health and Human Services later excluded the individuals from participation in federal health care programs for twelve years under 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7(b). Appellants sought review, arguing that the statute did not authorize their exclusion and the Secretary's decision was unsupported by substantial evidence and was arbitrary and capricious. The district court granted summary judgment for the Secretary. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) the statute authorized the Secretary's exclusion of Appellants, but (2) the Secretary's decision was arbitrary and capricious for want of a reasoned explanation for the length of the exclusions. View "Friedman v. Sebelius" on Justia Law

Defendant was the pharmacy director of a medical center and had influence over decisions concerning which drugs to stock. Levato was the local business manager of a pharmaceutical company. Levato agreed to pay defendant $18,000 not to switch away from his company's drug, and made computer entries recording nine nonexistent speeches given by defendant for the pharmaceutical company; defendant later received another $14,000 for more fictitious speeches. After investigation by an FDA agent, Levato and defendant were indicted. Levato plead guilty and testified against defendant. Defendant was convicted of solicitation and receipt of kickbacks and sentenced to 22 months in prison. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Memoranda prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, discovered by the prosecution after trial, did not constitute exculpatory material withheld by the prosecution. The court noted that the documents would have strengthened the prosecution case. View "United States v. Muoghalu" on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of two federal offenses: one count of aiding and abetting a violation of the so-called Medicare anti-kickback statute, in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7b(b)(2) and 18 U.S.C. 2, and one count of aiding and abetting the falsification of a document, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1519 and 2. Defendant raised several claims on appeal. The court held that the district court did not err in admitting testimony concerning statements made by defendant's wife during her interview with the FBI; in admitting evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) that defendant stole funds from previous employers in the healthcare industry; in denying defendant's motion to dismiss count one of the second superseding indictment, which charged a violation of the anti-kickback statute; by refusing to hold an evidentiary hearing on defendant's motion to suppress statements and to declare his proffer agreement unenforceable; and by granting in part the spouse's attorneys' motion to quash a subpoena requiring one of the representatives to produce his entire file regarding the representation of the spouse who was now deceased. The court also held that the district court's jury instructions regarding count one were not erroneous. The court held, however, that the district court erred in calculating the amount of loss under Guidelines 2B4.1 when it used the loss to the victims, rather than the benefit to defendant, as the measure of loss. Therefore, the court concluded that there was procedural error and defendant's sentence was vacated. The court finally vacated the restitution order and remanded for further proceedings. The court rejected defendant's remaining claims. View "United States v. Yielding" on Justia Law

Doctors filed suit, alleging violations of the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. 3279 and the Michigan Medicaid False Claim Act, as qui tam relators on behalf of the United States/ The claimed that the business defrauded the government by submitting Medicare and Medicaid billings for defective radiology studies, and that the billings were also fraudulent because the business was an invalid corporation. The federal government declined to intervene. The district court dismissed. Sixth Circuit affirmed. The doctors failed to identify any specific fraudulent claim submitted to the government, as is required to plead an FCA violation with the particularity mandated by the FRCP. A relator cannot merely allege that a defendant violated a standard (in this case, with respect to radiology studies), but must allege that compliance with the standard was required to obtain payment. The doctors had no personal knowledge that claims for nondiagnostic tests were presented to the government, nor do they allege facts that strongly support an inference that such billings were submitted.View "Chesbrough v. VPA, P.C." on Justia Law

Defendant, once a practicing psychiatrist, defrauded Medicare by receiving funds he was not entitled to receive and then fled the country to live as a fugitive in the Philippines. There, defendant created the website www.liver4you.org, fraudulently promising to provide critically ill patients liver or kidney transplants for certain sums of money. Defendant was subsequently convicted of one count of health care fraud and five counts of wire fraud. Defendant appealed, arguing that the district court committed four procedural errors in calculating defendant's offense level and imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence. The government argued that the court should not consider the four procedural errors because at sentencing the district court stated it would impose "the same sentence" even without some of the alleged errors. The court rejected this contention and emphasized that such predictions were only rarely appropriate. Defendant argued that his website was not mass-marketing pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(ii) because he did not initiate contact with his victims where they found his website, which was publicly available online, and emailed him at an address listed on the website. The court rejected defendant's distinction and held that he committed fraud by using the internet to solicit a large number of persons to buy his organ transplant services. Therefore, the court held that the enhancement applied even if defendant did not use the most active marketing method possible. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Defendant pled guilty to one count of identity theft as part of a plea agreement where defendant had treated hundreds of patients while falsely representing that he was a licensed physician. In determining defendant's sentence, the district court increased his sentence under U.S.S.G. 3A1.1(b)(1) because some of his patients were children with serious mental health conditions. On appeal, defendant disputed the increase in his offense level, contending that section 3A1.1(b)(1)'s 2-level adjustment for vulnerable victims applied only to victims of defendant's offense of conviction, who in this case would include only those victims who suffered financial loss. The court disagreed and held that the adjustment applied not only to victims of the offense of conviction, but also to victims of defendant's relevant conduct. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.