New York Paralegal Blog

A New York-based healthcare executive has pleaded guilty to participating in a substantial kickback conspiracy that defrauded Medicare of millions of dollars by incentivizing doctors to order medically unnecessary brain scans. James Rausch, 57, of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., admitted in a Boston federal court to his role in a long-running scheme. As the director of operations and sales for a mobile medical diagnostics company, Rausch was involved in a conspiracy to pay doctors for ordering transcranial doppler (TCD) scans, which measure blood flow in the brain. The Anatomy of the Fraud From March 2015 to September 2020, Rausch and his co-conspirators arranged to pay doctors for each TCD scan they ordered. To disguise these illegal kickbacks, they created sham agreements. These documents falsely claimed the payments were for legitimate services, such as renting office space or administrative support, and were based on fair market value. In reality, the payments were directly tied to ...

WASHINGTON—Two individuals and three corporations were sentenced in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by Judge George B. Daniels today to serve time in prison and to pay criminal fines for their participation in an eight-year conspiracy involving kickbacks in excess of $2.3 million to defraud New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH), the Department of Justice announced. The individuals and the corporations were convicted after a four-week trial in February 2012.

PROVIDENCE, RI—A federal grand jury in Providence returned a 37-count indictment today charging Ralph Mariano, 54, of Arlington, Virginia, a civilian engineer with the U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) in Newport, Rhode Island and Washington D.C.; and his father, Ralph Mariano, Jr., 80, of North Providence, Rhode Island, in connection with an alleged 15-year bribery and fraud conspiracy involving approximately $10 million of U.S. naval funds.

PROVIDENCE, RI—The founder and president of a technology services company with offices in Rhode Island and Georgia has agreed to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Providence to bribery of a public official in connection with an alleged kickback scheme of more than $9 million of naval funds. United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha today announced that Anjan Dutta-Gupta, 58, of Roswell, GA, founder and president of Advanced Solutions for Tomorrow (ASFT), with offices in Middletown, Rhode Island and Roswell, Georgia, has agreed to plead guilty to paying bribes to a civilian program manager and senior systems engineer with the United States Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) who maintained offices in Newport, R.I. and Washington, D.C., and to others, to ensure payment and additional funding to existing Naval contracts and work orders for work purportedly to be performed at ASFT. According to an information and a statement of facts attached to the plea agreement signed by th...

WASHINGTON – St. Jude Medical Inc. of St. Paul, Minn., has agreed to pay the United States $16 million to resolve allegations that the company used post-market studies and a registry to pay kickbacks to induce physicians to implant the company’s pacemakers and defibrillators, the Justice Department announced on 01/20/2011. Post-market studies are intended to assess the clinical performance of a medical device or drug after that device or drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Registries are collections of data maintained by a device manufacturer concerning its products that have been sold and implanted in patients.

Allegedly Engaged in Improper Financial Relationship with Referring Physicians WASHINGTON – Detroit Medical Center, a non-profit company that owns and operates hospitals and outpatient facilities in Detroit, has agreed to pay the United States $30 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Statute, by engaging in improper financial relationships with referring physicians, the Justice Department announced today. The Stark Statute and the Anti-Kickback Statute restrict the financial relationships that hospitals may have with doctors who refer patients to them. Most of the relationships at issue in this matter involved office lease agreements and independent contractor relationships that were either inconsistent with fair market value or not memorialized in writing.

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; GEORGE VENIZELOS, the Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”); and MARJORIE FRANZMAN, the Special Agent-in-Charge for the United States Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General's New York Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations (“DOL-OIG”), announced the arrest of LAWRENCE PESCE, a construction manager for Touro College, on charges that he had defrauded Touro College out of more than $2 million since May 2008 through a kickback scheme that included the submission of an inflated bid for a construction project, bid-rigging, and the submission of fraudulent invoices. According to the Complaint unsealed today in Manhattan federal court: In or about May 2008, Touro College sought competitive bids for a construction project located at 230 West 125th Street in Manhattan (“the project”). LAWRENCE PESCE was Touro College...