WASHINGTON D.C.
A California man pleaded guilty Wednesday to submitting fraudulent claims to Medicare for prescription drugs never dispensed to patients, officials stated.
According to court documents, Paul Mansour, 55, of Sierra Madre, was a pharmacist at a Sierra M
adre-based pharmacy, Mansour Partners Inc., doing business as Best Buy Drugs, which he also co-owned.
Mansour created fake patient profiles in the pharmacy’s digital filing system and added fraudulent prescription medication entries to these fictitious patient files that duplicated medication prescriptions provided to pharmacy patients.
Mansour then submitted false and fraudulent claims for the drugs added in the fictitious patient files that had never been dispensed, billing Medicare for the fraudulent prescriptions in the names of real pharmacy patients.
Between January 2017 and June 2022, Mansour caused Medicare to pay the pharmacy between approximately $600,000 and over $1 million due to the submission of false and fraudulent claims.
Mansour pleaded guilty to one count of healthcare fraud, officials stated.
Mansour is scheduled to be sentenced on June 28. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The FBI Los Angeles Field Office and HHS-OIG investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Helen H. Lee of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section is prosecuting the case.
The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program.
Since March 2007, this program, comprised of 15 strike forces operating in 25 federal districts, has charged more than 5,000 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $24 billion.