Government Enforcement Actions

January 30, 2015

Maxim Chukharev, former information technology manager for Liberty Reserve, a company that operated one of the world’s most widely used digital currency services, was sentenced to 36 months in prison for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. According to the government, Liberty Reserve billed itself as the Internet’s “largest payment processor and money transfer system” but instead was created, structured and operated to help users conduct illegal transactions anonymously and launder the proceeds of their crimes. According to court records, before being shut down by the government in May 2013, Liberty Reserve conducted approximately 55 million transactions through its system totaling more than $6B in funds which encompassed suspected proceeds of credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, narcotics trafficking and other crimes.DOJ

January 30, 2015

Pharmaceutical company Laclede Inc. and its president Michael A. Pellico entered into a consent decree of permanent injunction concerning the distribution of unapproved over-the-counter vaginal drug products sold under the name Luvena Prebiotic. According to the government, Laclede’s sale and distribution of the Luvena Prebiotic products violated various provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because they did not have the required FDA approval. DOJ

January 29, 2015

Four South Florida residents were sentenced in connection with a long-running $6.2M Medicare fraud scheme involving Professional Medical Home Health LLC, a Miami home health care agency operated for the purpose of billing the Medicare program for expensive physical therapy and home health services that were not medically necessary or actually provided. Dennis Hernandez was sentenced to 120 months in prison and to pay $1,438,186; Jose Alvarez was sentenced to 120 months in prison and to pay $2,972,570; Joel San Pedro was sentenced to 97 months in prison and to pay $4,938,432; Alina Hernandez was sentenced to 24 months in prison and to pay $204,526.05. DOJ

January 28, 2015

Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, a scientist formerly employed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was sentenced to 60 months in prison for violating the Atomic Energy Act by communicating classified nuclear weapons data to a person he believed to be a Venezuelan government official. DOJ

January 27, 2015

Japanese-based auto parts manufacturer Sanden Corp. agreed to plead guilty and pay a $3.2M criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition for the purchase of compressors used in air conditioning systems sold to Nissan North America Inc. for installation in vehicles manufactured and sold in the US and elsewhere. Including Sanden, 33 companies have pleaded guilty for a total of more than $2.4B in fines. DOJ

January 26, 2015

Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act for illegally disclosing national defense information and obstructing justice in connection with his role in the CIA’s classified clandestine operational program designed to undermine the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Whistleblower Insider

January 26, 2015

Ramon Regueira, the owner and operator of a Miami home health care agency Nation’s Best Care Home Health Corp. was sentenced to 106 months in prison and to pay $21M for his participation in a $30M Medicare fraud scheme. Regueira admitted he and his co-conspirators operated Nation’s Best for the purpose of billing the Medicare program for, among other things, expensive physical therapy and home health care services that were not medically necessary or not provided. He further admitted he and his co-conspirators paid kickbacks and bribes to patient recruiters who provided patients to Nation’s Best, as well as prescriptions, plans of care (POCs) and certifications for medically unnecessary therapy and home health services.DOJ

January 26, 2015

Composite Engineering Inc., a Sacramento-based subsidiary of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions that manufactures remote-controlled subscale aircraft for the US. military, agreed to pay $2M to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act by submitting inflated costs in connection with a 2007 Air Force contract. DOJ

January 26, 2015

Kentucky-based ambulance services company Lafferty Enterprises, LLC(d/b/a Trans-Star Ambulance Services) agreed to pay $948,000 to settle charges it violated the False Claims Act by billing federal health care programs for medically unnecessary services over the course of several years. According to the government, from February 2006 until December 2012, the company transported Medicare patients to and from dialysis clinics by ambulance when an ambulance transport was not medically necessary. The charges originated from a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Kevin Fairlie under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. He will receive a whistleblower award of $189,600. DOJ

January 23, 2015

A historic $5.15B settlement reached with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. andKerr McGee went into effect, allowing funds to be disbursed for cleanups across the country. It is the largest payment for the clean-up of environmental contamination ever obtained by the DOJ. According to Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden for the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, the recovery “will lead to cleanups across the country that will undo lasting damage to the environment, including contamination of tribal lands, by Kerr-McGee’s businesses.”DOJ