{"id":916,"date":"2014-02-18T16:58:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T00:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=916"},"modified":"2014-02-20T12:47:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T20:47:43","slug":"doctor-two-others-found-guilty-20-million-medicare-medi-cal-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=916","title":{"rendered":"Doctor and Two Others Found Guilty of $20 Million Medicare and Medi-Cal Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1392766959397_5352\">\n<p><strong>LOS ANGELES<\/strong> \u2013 Three people linked to a Glendale medical clinic \u2013 including a doctor who took money to let his name be used thousands times on bogus prescriptions \u2013 were found guilty today of federal fraud charges related to a $20 million scheme to defraud Medicare and Medi-Cal, according to the U.S. Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">The defendants fraudulently prescribed expensive anti-psychotic medications and then re-billing the government for those drugs over and over, authorities said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1392766959397_7022\" style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;\"><\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">It was the largest case \u00a0of its kind in Southern California &#8211; tabbed Operation &#8220;Psyched Out&#8221; &#8211; that was\u00a0brought against defendants who bilked Medicare Part D. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">The victims included elderly Vietnamese beneficiaries of Medicare or Medi-Cal, military veterans who were recruited from drug rehab programs, and denizens of Skid Row.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The scheme generated fraudulent billings of more than $20 million dollars, of which Medi-Cal and Medicare actually paid more than $8 million.<\/p>\n<p>After the verdicts were read, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero, who presided over the three-week trial, \u00a0called the scope of the fraud &#8220;breathtaking,\u201d \u00a0adding that the defendants \u201cpreyed upon the poor [and] used them as pawns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The three defendants convicted today are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr.<strong> Kenneth Johnson<\/strong>, 47, of Ladera Heights, who served as the face of Manor with pharmacists and auditors from Medicare and Medi-Cal, and who pre-signed thousands of blank prescriptions that were filled out by co-conspirators;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nuritsa Grigoryan<\/strong>, 49, of Glendale, who holds an Armenian medical license and who pretended to be an American doctor when she saw homeless \u201cpatients\u201d at the clinic and filled out the bogus prescriptions pre-signed by Dr. Johnson; and<\/li>\n<li><strong>Artak Ovsepian<\/strong>, 32, of Tujunga, one of the leaders of the conspiracy who oversaw the acquisition of drugs at pharmacies using the bogus prescriptions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">According to evidence, \u00a0operators of Manor Medical Imaging in Glendale operated a clinic authorized to make claims to Medicare and Medi-Cal, employed an unlicensed medical practitioner to write bogus prescriptions using an American doctor\u2019s name and license number.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">They had close relationships with pharmacies and a fraudulent drug wholesale company that were used to funnel prescription drugs back to the pharmacies participating in the scheme.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">Members of the conspiracy created or doctored patient files to make it falsely appear the drugs were necessary and the patients were legitimately treated.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"> After the prescriptions were filled at pharmacies and paid for by Medicare and Medi-Cal, \u00a0authorities said they were sold on the black market and redistributed to pharmacies. The drugs would then be subject to new claims made to Medicare and Medi-Cal as though they were new bottles of drugs, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">Following the reading of the verdicts, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero, who presided over the three-week trial, said, \u201cThe scope of the fraud was breathtaking.\u201d Judge Otero said the defendants \u201cpreyed upon the poor [and] used them as pawns.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Judge Otero is scheduled to sentence Grigoryan and Ovsepian on June 9. Johnson is scheduled to be sentenced on June 30.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">A fourth defendant who went to trial \u2013 Artyom Yeghiazaryan, a driver who took beneficiaries to pharmacies \u2013 was acquitted by the jury.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>With today\u2019s verdicts, a total of 16 defendants charged in 2011 have now been convicted of various charges related to the health care fraud scheme.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES \u2013 Three people linked to a Glendale medical clinic \u2013 including a doctor who took money to let his name be used thousands times on bogus prescriptions \u2013 were found&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[177,178,175,181,180,179,176],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courts","tag-artak-ovsepian","tag-glendale","tag-kenneth-johnson","tag-manor-medical-imaging","tag-medi-cal","tag-medicare","tag-nuritsa-grigoryan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Doctor and Two Others Found Guilty of $20 Million Medicare and Medi-Cal Fraud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"LOS ANGELES \u2013 Three people linked to a Glendale medical clinic \u2013 including a doctor who took money to let his name be used thousands times on bogus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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