HOUSTON – A U.S. District Court jury on Wednesday convicted two owners of a former Houston mental health care company, Spectrum Care P.A., several of its employees and others of Medicare fraud scheme, officials announced.
Spectrum billed Medicare for about $97 million in services that were not necessary or were not provided, according to evidence presented at trial.
According to authorities, the defendants who were convicted are:
- Physicians Mansour Sanjar, 81, and Cyrus Sajadi, 66, the owners of Spectrum, were each convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to pay kickbacks as well as related counts of health care fraud and paying illegal kickbacks.
- Adam Main, 33, a physician’s assistant, was convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and related counts of health care fraud.
- Shokoufeh Hakimi, 66, administrator of Spectrum, was convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to pay kickbacks and a related count of paying an illegal kickback.
- Chandra Nunn, 35, a group home owner, was also convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks and related counts of receiving illegal kickbacks.
- Sharonda Holmes, 40, a patient recruiter, was convicted of conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks and a related count of receiving an illegal kickback.
- Shawn Manney, 51, a group home owner, was convicted of conspiracy to pay and receive illegal kickbacks.
From 2006 to 2011, Sanjar and Sajadi who owned Specturm, concocted a scheme to defraud Medicare through a partial hospitalization program or PHP. The program is a form of intensive outpatient treatment for severe mental illness, according to officials.
Sanjar, Sajadi, Main and Moore signed admission documents and progress notes certifying that patients qualified for PHP services, when in fact, the patients did not qualify for or need PHP services, authorities said.
Officials said Sanjar and Sajadi also billed Medicare when patients were watching movies, coloring and playing games–activities that are not covered by Medicare.
The defendants will be sentenced in September.