A federal grand jury in California filed a superseding indictment on Wednesday, accusing a Los Angeles County doctor of running an alleged Medicare fraud scheme built around Botox injections — and then trying to derail the investigation with falsified records, officials stated.
The indictment charges Violetta Mailyan, 45, who owned and operated Healthy Way Medical Center, with submitting more than $45 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, according to court documents.
Prosecutors say the clinic billed for Botox injections that were medically unnecessary and, in many cases, never provided.
In the filing, prosecutors cite a string of alleged red flags: claims submitted for injection dates when Mailyan was traveling internationally, when the beneficiary who supposedly received the injections was also traveling internationally, when that beneficiary was in federal prison, and when the clinic was closed.
Mailyan faces nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstructing a criminal investigation of health care offenses. If convicted, she could be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count and up to five years for each obstruction count.