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Criminal Proceedings

This archive displays posts tagged as involving criminal law proceedings relevant to whistleblowers. You may also be interested in our pages:

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September 2, 2021

Jonathan Dean Davis, the owner of for-profit trade school called Retail Ready Career Center, has agreed to forfeit over $72 million after being convicted of defrauding the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.  According to evidence presented at trial, Davis falsely certified that he was not personally facing any criminal or civil actions, and that his school was an established, financially-secure educational institution—neither of which were true.  The scheme unraveled after student veterans realized the HVAC training they received at the school was insufficient for entry-level jobs in the industry.  USAO NDTX; subsequent sentencing

August 27, 2021

Prithviraj “Roger” Bhikha, a former Senior Director of Global Supplier Management at Cisco Systems, Inc. was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $2.5 million to the IRS following his guilty plea on charges arising from his receipt of kickbacks from Cisco vendors, his creation of a front company that billed $10 million in services to Cisco while concealing his role, and his failure to report more than $9 million in income to the IRS.  Bhikha was also ordered to pay $1.15 million to Cisco, and forfeited to pieces of real estate in San Francisco.  IRS; USAO ND Cal

Catch of the Week: Florida Man Charged with Stealing Over $12 Million in Funds Slated for PPE

Posted  08/27/21
person handcuffed with hands on stack of papers with briefcase
DOJ continues to make good on its promise to root out fraud in pandemic relief.  This week, a Florida resident Brian Sperber was indicted for defrauding hospitals and medical institutions out of more than $12 million dollars by falsely promising to deliver personal protective equipment to those purchasers. Sperber and his co-conspirators, who ran medical supply and logistics companies, took orders for N95 masks and...

August 26, 2021

In-home care provider At Home Care LLC and its principal, Kevin Cox, will pay a total of $2.9 million to resolve allegations that they overcharged the Oregon Medicaid program, including by altering caregiver scheduling records and falsely billing for hours of in-home care that were not actually provided.  The company pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud charges, and agreed to be excluded from government healthcare programs.  USAO Or

August 23, 2021

Charles McAllister was ordered to pay $16.2 million in restitution to resolve claims arising from his operation of BullionDirect, Inc., which promised customers that it would purchase precious metals on their behalf, and deliver or store that metal. In fact, however, McCallister and BullionDirect did not purchase or store metal for customers, but instead misappropriated customer funds to pay back other customers, cover business expenses, and invest in other businesses.  Defendants sent false account statements to customers to conceal the fraud.  In 2019, McAllister was sentenced to 10 years in prison.  CFTC

August 18, 2021

Defense contractor Iris Kim, Inc. (“I-Tek”), together with its owner and four employees, were sentenced on criminal charges arising out of a fraudulent scheme to falsely qualify for Department of Defense and other federal government supply contracts set aside for service-disabled veterans, import Chinese-manufactured goods in violation of the terms of these contracts, and falsely relabel these goods as if they were made in the U.S.  The U.S. spent over $7 million on fraudulently-imported goods sold by I-Tek.  Owner Beyung S. Kim was sentenced to 58 months in prison, and the four employees were sentenced to a combined 93 months in prison.  USAO ED VA

August 9, 2021

Ralph Hackett, a fruit broker in California’s Central Valley, will pay $1.255 million to resolve criminal charges and civil claims arising from his role in a crop insurance fraud scheme.  In a guilty plea, Hackett acknowledged that he authorized alterations to business records and misstatements to underreport the table grapes sold by another individual, so that the individual could submit fraudulent crop insurance claims between 2012 and 2015.  Hackett agreed to pay criminal restitution of $650,000 and a civil penalty of $605,000; his prison sentence is yet to be determined.  USAO ED Cal

August 6, 2021

Maryland-based National Spine & Pain Center (NSPC) and its affiliate, Physical Medicine Associates, Ltd. (PMA), have agreed to pay $5.1 million to Medicare and enter into a non-prosecution agreement to settle a criminal fraud investigation.  In violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute, NSPC and PMA had conspired with a now-defunct California-based genetics testing company called Proove Biosciences to have Proove pay illegal kickbacks to NSPC and PMA physicians in exchange for a certain volume of test referrals.  Nine individuals have been charged in connection with the scheme.  USAO SDCA

August 6, 2021

Chandra Yarlagadda, who owned and operated biodiesel supplier Alpha Bioenergy LLC, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $3.3 million following his guilty plea to income tax evasion charges.  Yarlagadda, who reported income and expenses associated with Alpha Bioenergy on Schedules C attached to his personal income tax returns, admitted that over the course of three years he reported that the company incurred expenses totaling more than $14.2 million for the purchase and retirement of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) used by the EPA, when, in fact, he had incurred only $80,000 in RIN expenses during those years.  Without the inflated deduction claims, Yarlagadda would have owed an additional $2.3 million in federal income taxes.  DOJ

August 6, 2021

Colorado resident Wayde McKelvy was sentenced to 18 years in prison and ordered to pay $37 million in restitution following conviction on charges related to his operation of a Ponzi scheme.  McKelvy and others operated Mantria Corporation, which they claimed offered huge returns by investing in real estate and green energy projects.  Through these misrepresentations, defendants obtained more than $54 million in funds from duped investors.  USAO ED PA
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