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DOJ Enforcement Actions

The Department of Justice is the principal federal agency authorized to enforce the laws and defend the interests of the United States. As such, it oversees the enforcement of the False Claims Act, the foundation of the American whistleblower system, as well as numerous other laws.

The agency traces its origins to the Judiciary Act of 1789 which created the Office of the Attorney General, and the 1870 Act to Establish the Department of Justice, which established the agency as “an executive department of the government of the United States” with the Attorney General as its head.

The agency is comprised of numerous divisions with the Civil Division and in some instances, the Criminal Division, overseeing investigations and prosecutions under the False Claims Act. The U.S. Attorneys Office of the federal district where the False Claims Act case is filed also plays a key role in False Claims Act enforcement.

Below are summaries of recent DOJ settlements or successful resolutions under the False Claims Act as well as other successful prosecutions for fraud and misconduct. If you believe you have information about fraud which could give  rise to a claim for a whistleblower reward, please contact us to speak with one of our experienced whistleblower attorneys.

August 3, 2022

William Richard “Rick” Carter, Jr. will spend 66 months in prison and pay over $1.3 million in restitution for his scheme to defraud the Alabama State Department of Education, in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Carter and his co-conspirators fraudulently enrolled students in public virtual schools to receive payments from Alabama’s Education Trust Fund, and then took portions of the money for their own use through direct cash payments and payments to third-party contractors owned by the various co-conspirators—William L. (“Trey”) Holladay, III, Gregory (“Greg”) Earl Corkren, David Webb Tutt, and Thomas Michael SiskUSAO MDAL

August 2, 2022

Denver Public Schools paid over $2.1 million to resolve a False Claims Act investigation into its misuse of AmeriCorps funds. AmeriCorps funds are used to address critical community needs such as fighting poverty, mentoring youth, and increasing academic achievement. To that end, AmeriCorps provides education awards to their volunteers a/k/a “members” for performing a specified number of service hours in these communities. DPS recruited their existing employees for AmeriCorps programs and double-counted hours spent on their employment duties as being on service, which is disallowed as it deprives the students of the net benefit of the additional support they would have received from non-DPS-employed AmeriCorps members. USAO CO

August 2, 2022

VE Source LLC and its owners, Sherman Barton and Christopher Neary, as well as a related entity, Vertical Source LLC, have together agreed to pay nearly $8 million to resolve claims of violating the False Claims Act.  VE Source had fraudulently obtained more than $16.5 million in contracts with the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) that were set aside for businesses owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans, which it was not.  USAO NJ

August 1, 2022

FCA US LLC, formerly Chrysler Group LLC, will pay over $96 million in fines, forfeit an additional $203 million, in addition to 3 years of organizational probation for its conspiracy to defraud regulators about emissions control systems on its 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 diesel vehicles from 2014 to 2016. FCA US marketed these vehicles as “clean EcoDiesel” and as having best-in-class fuel efficiency. What they didn’t disclose, however, is that FCA beat the regulatory scrutiny by installing software designed to manipulate emissions controls through “cycle detection” and “cycle beating,” without which the vehicles would not have passed federal tests. DOJ, EDMI

July 29, 2022

Old Man’s Home of Philadelphia d/b/a Saunders House, a skilled nursing facility, will pay $819,640 for its violations of the False Claims Act. A whistleblower filed suit under the qui tam provisions of the FCA, alleging Saunders House overbilled federal healthcare programs for therapy services provided; billed for therapy services not provided; billed for unreasonable, unnecessary, and sometimes harmful therapy; and manipulated clinical services to maximize billing. Medicare Part A paid Saunders House based on beneficiaries’ assigned Resource Utilization Group, and Saunders billed at the highest RUG level—Ultra High or RU—despite the lack of reasonableness or necessity for the patients. USAO EDPA

July 28, 2022

Jaeson Birnbaum, disbarred attorney and owner of now-bankrupt litigation finance firm, Cash4Cases, will spend 3 years in prison for defrauding investors, in addition to paying over $2.6 million in restitution, and forfeiting another $2.6 million in fraud proceeds. Birnbaum offered sham “Investor Security Agreements,” allowing investors to share in recoveries from lawsuits supposedly purchased by Cash4Cases. Birnbaum netted over $3 million in investors’ funds through his fraud, misappropriated client funds for personal use, and directed his employee to falsify the company’s books and records to show already-paid-out funds as still available to be pledged as collateral to new investors. USAO SDNY

July 27, 2022

Trident Mortgage Company entered into a settlement agreement with federal and state agencies to resolve allegations that the non-bank lender intentionally discriminated against minority loan applicants by engaging in a pattern or practice of lending discrimination through “redlining.”  Trident agreed to invest over $20 million to increase credit opportunities in neighborhoods of color in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, and pay a $4 million penalty to the CFPB. DOJ; CFPB; PA; NJ; DE

July 27, 2022

ca Glenn Pair and Markuetric Stringfellow will spend 70 and 78 months in prison, respectively, and pay over $5 million each in restitution for defrauding three States’ Medicaid programs of more than $5 million, and for receiving $1.8 million in kickbacks from participating laboratories. The two owned and operated Do-It-4-The Hood Corporation in North Carolina and later expanded to Georgia. They targeted Medicare-eligible children, enrolled them in their programs, and required them to submit urine specimens for drug testing. Drug testing was in turn billed to Medicaid by complicit laboratories, who then paid kickbacks after receiving Medicaid reimbursement. Through their Wrights Care Services LLC franchise in South Carolina, the two filed fraudulent Medicaid claims for mental health counseling, going so far as to host a “note party,” upon learning of a Medicare audit of Wrights Care, to cover up their scheme by creating false billing records to substantiate their fraudulent Medicaid claims. USAO WDNC, USAO SC

July 26, 2022

Dr. Don Flanagan, D.D.S. and his companies Dental Center, Inc. and Dental Center, P.C. d/b/a Cloudland Dental, will pay $1.5 million for submitting or causing to be submitted claims for payment by falsely identifying Dr. Flanagan as the credentialed physician rendering services. TennCare requires dentists to be credentialed as part of the approval process for billing, yet, from January 2015 through February 2019, services were rendered by uncredentialed dentists, which is a violation of the Tennessee Medicaid False Claims Act. EDTN USAO

July 25, 2022

DCP Operation Company LP and five other DCP Midstream LP subsidiaries will pay $3.25 million and will take corrective actions to strengthen leak detection and repair processes at eight Weld County, Colorado natural gas processing plants. DCP’s inadequate leak detection and repair requirements caused excess emissions of volatile organic compounds and other pollutants into the atmosphere, a violation of the Clean Air Act. The failures were discovered by Colorado’s innovative Air Pollution Control Division’s Leak Detection and Repair Program. DOJ
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