DOJ Enforcement

March 15, 2016

Tennessee-based Southern Tennessee Medical Center agreed to pay roughly $2.5 million to settle charges it violated the False Claims Act by submitting Medicare claims for medically unnecessary days of in-patient geriatric psychiatric services and in-patient geriatric psychiatric services for which a Physician Certification or Recertification was not obtained.  DOJ (MDTN)

March 15, 2016

The German shipping companies Briese Schiffahrts GmbH & Co. KG and Briese Schiffahrts GmbH & Co. KG who owned and operated the cargo ship M/V BBC Magellan, pleaded guilty to failure to maintain an accurate oil record book, in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and tampering with witnesses by persuading them to provide false statements to the U.S. Coast Guard concerning a bypass hose on the vessel that was being used to discharge oil into the sea.  The companies were sentenced to pay a total of $1.25 million in fines and a $250,000 community service payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to fund projects that enhance coastal habitats of the Gulf of Mexico and bolster priority fish and wildlife populations.  In addition, the ship M/V BBC Magellan is banned from doing business in the United States for the next five years.  DOJ

March 15, 2016

Geoffrey Alexander Ramer was sentenced to 108 months in prison and to pay $2.9 million in restitution and forfeit $1.9 million for his role in a sweepstakes fraud scheme that victimized hundreds of elderly U.S. residents.  According to his guilty plea, Ramer owned and operated call centers located in Costa Rica which called U.S. residents, many of whom were elderly, and falsely informed them they had won a substantial cash prize in a sweepstakes but needed to pay purportedly refundable insurance fees to obtain the money.  Ramer and his co-conspirators kept the victims’ funds, never provided any winnings to the victims and used the funds to continue the call centers’ operations.  DOJ

March 14, 2016

Syracuse-based government contractor Hayner Hoyt Corporation agreed to pay $5 million to settle charges that its chairman and chief executive officer Gary Thurston, its president Jeremy Thurston, and its affiliate companies LeMoyne Interiors and Doyner Inc., violated the False Claims Act by exploiting contracting opportunities reserved for service-disabled veterans.  According to the government, “by diverting contracts and benefits intended for our nation’s service-disabled veterans . . . , the defendants undercut Congress’s intent of encouraging contract awards to legitimate service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.” The allegations originated in a whistleblower lawsuit filed under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act by former Hayner Hoyt subsidiary employee John Rubar.  He will receive a whistleblower award of $875,000 from the proceeds of the government’s recovery.  Whistleblower Insider

March 10, 2016

Two former derivatives traders at Rabobank Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank B.A. (Rabobank) were sentenced to prison for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rates (LIBOR) for the U.S. Dollar (USD) and Japanese Yen (JPY), benchmark interest rates to which trillions of dollars in interest rate contracts were tied.  Anthony Allen, the bank’s former global head of liquidity and finance in London, was sentenced to 24 months and Anthony Conti, a former senior trader on the bank’s money markets desk in London, was sentenced to 12 months.  DOJ

March 9, 2016

New York-based Bard College agreed to pay $4 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act by receiving funds under the Department of Education’s Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Program despite failing to comply with the conditions of the grant.  The settlement also resolves allegations that Bard awarded, disbursed, and received Title IV student loan funds at campus locations before such locations were accredited or before providing notice of such locations to the Department of Education in violation of applicable regulations and Bard’s Title IV Program Participation Agreements with the agency.  The allegations originated in a whistleblower lawsuit filed under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act by two former students of Bard’s Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Paramount Bard Academy in Delano, California.  They will receive a yet-to-be-determined whistleblower award from the proceeds of the government's recovery.  DOJ (EDCA)

March 8, 2016

21st Century Oncology Inc., the nation’s largest physician led integrated cancer care provider, and its wholly owned subsidiary South Florida Radiation Oncology agreed to pay $34.7 million to settle charges they violated the False Claims Act by performing and billing for cancer care procedures that were not medically necessary or properly provided. According to the government, the companies improperly billed for Gamma function procedures — which measure radiation doses — under circumstances where there was no medically appropriate purpose for the treatment.  The allegations leading to the settlement originated in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Joseph Ting, a former physicist at South Florida Radiation Oncology, under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.  He will receive a whistleblower award of more than $7 million from the proceeds of the government’s recovery.  This settlement follows on the heels of the $19.75 million settlement 21st Century Oncology Inc. subsidiary 21st Century Oncology LLC agreed to pay in December to settle charges of billing for medically unnecessary laboratory urine tests and for paying kickbacks to encourage physicians to order the tests.  Whistleblower Insider

March 7, 2016

Ohio-based defense contractor ArmorSource, LLC agreed to pay $3 million to settle charges of violating the False Claims Act in connection with a contract to provide combat helmets to the U.S. Army.  According to the government, ArmorSource delivered helmets to the Army that were manufactured and tested using methods that did not conform to contract requirements, that failed to meet contract performance standards and that were eventually recalled after several lots failed ballistic safety tests.  ArmorSource had subcontracted the manufacturing of the helmets to Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI), which operates under the trade name UNICOR.  The allegations originated in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by FPI employees Melessa Ponzio and Sharon Clubb under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.  They will receive a whistleblower award of $450,000 from the proceeds of the government's recovery.  DOJ

March 7, 2016

Florida businessman David Brock Lovelace was sentenced to 174 months in prison and to pay $2,512,460 in restitution for his role in a multimillion-dollar health care fraud and money laundering scheme.  According to evidence presented at trial, Lovelace and co-conspirators used Cornerstone Health Specialists, Summit Health Specialists and Coastal Health Specialists, three purported medical clinics in Florida, to submit to Medicare more than $12 million in fraudulent claims for radiology, audiology, cardiology and neurology services not rendered by physicians, secured by kickbacks or the subject of forged or falsified documents.  DOJ

March 7, 2016

Philip Joseph Rivkin (aka Felipe Poitan Arriaga) was sentenced to 121 months in prison and to pay more than $87 million in restitution and forfeit $51 million for generating and selling fraudulent biodiesel credits in the federal renewable fuel program through his companies Green Diesel LLC, Fuel Streamers Inc. and Petro Constructors LLC.  DOJ