Criminal Proceedings Archives - Page 15 of 37

Catches of the Week: Contractors Abroad Face Liability for Fraud in U.S. Government Contracts

Posted 02/19/21

This week, we double up on the Catch of the Week, and highlight two actions involving foreign contractors doing business with the U.S. Navy.

French Concrete Contractor Pays $14.5 Million to Resolve Claims of Delivering Substandard Concrete for U.S. Navy Bases in Africa

In the first case, Colas Djibouti, a subsidiary of French contractor Colas, agreed to pay $12.5m to the U.S. government to settle criminal charges,...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, Contract Non-Compliance, Criminal Proceedings, Defense Contract Fraud, Environmental Fraud, FCA Federal, Government Procurement Fraud, Importance of Whistleblowers, International Whistleblowers, Ocean Dumping,

February 19, 2021

Antonio Olivera, a hospice administrator in Southern California, has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $2.2 million in restitution for his role in a multimillion dollar fraud scheme that ran from 2011 to 2018. Together with three co-conspirators, Olivera paid illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters for referrals of Medicare beneficiaries to the hospice, Mhiramarc Management LLC. When Mhiramarc staffers realized the referrals did not qualify for hospice, Olivera overruled them and caused the referrals to be put on hospice, ultimately causing Medicare to pay over $17 million in false claims. DOJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Criminal Proceedings, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Home Health and Hospice, Lack of Medical Necessity, Medicare,

February 18, 2021

The owner of the vessel Kota Harum, Pacific International Lines (Private) Limited, and employees Maung Maung Soe and Peng Luo Hai, pleaded guilty to charges under the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and Clean Water Act related to the vessel's unlawful discharge of oily bilge water into Apra Harbor, Guam, and the failure to maintain complete and truthful oil record books. The company will pay a $3 million criminal penalty and defendants are on probation. DOJ

Tagged in: Criminal Proceedings, Environmental Fraud, Ocean Dumping,

February 17, 2021

French contractor COLAS Djibouti SARL will pay a total of $14.5 million to resolve claims that it supplied substandard concrete under a contract with the U.S. Navy for construction of Navy airfields in the Republic of Djibouti. Colas Djibouti was required to certify that concrete supplied met contractual specifications for composition and characteristics, but made fraudulent misrepresentations and created fictitious testing results regarding the concrete’s composition and characteristics. Defendant entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on criminal claims, paying $12.5 million ($10 million in forfeiture and restitution, and $2.5 million as a criminal penalty). Defendant also entered into a civil settlement for $3.9 million, receiving a credit of $1.96 million for its payment under the DPA. DOJ; USAO SD Cal

Tagged in: Contract Non-Compliance, Criminal Proceedings, Defense Contract Fraud, FCA Federal, Government Procurement Fraud,

February 16, 2021

Nigerian national Obinwanne Okeke was sentenced to ten years in prison on charges arising from his role in a computer-based fraud scheme that caused an estimated $11 million in losses. Okeke’s fraud included unauthorized access via email compromise to the computer systems of a division Caterpillar, from which defendant directed fraudulent wire transfers supported by fake invoices. USAO ED VA

Tagged in: Criminal Proceedings, Cybersecurity and Data Breaches, Financial and Investment Fraud,

February 12, 2021

The operator of Georgia-based durable medical equipment company Wilmington Island Medical Inc. has been sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay about $550,000 in restitution for paying kickbacks to doctors and nurse practitioners in exchange for signed orders and then billing those orders to Medicare. The judgment against Patrick Wolfe is part of an ongoing investigation by the Southern District of Georgia to crack down on more than $1.5 billion in losses to Medicare and Medicaid originating from the district. So far a total of thirty-one individuals and companies have been charged. USAO SDGA

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Criminal Proceedings, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medical Devices and DME, Medicare,

February 5, 2021

Michael Malone, the founder and former executive director of the St. Louis College Prep Charter School, was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $2.4 million, following his guilty plea to charges arising from a fraudulent scheme to obtain education funds from the Sate of Missouri by inflating the school’s average daily attendance in reports to the state and falsely claiming regular school days and hours as summer school or remedial hours. USAO ED MO

Tagged in: Criminal Proceedings, Education Fraud,

February 4, 2021

Durable medical equipment company Regency, Inc., has agreed to a $20.3 million civil settlement to resolve allegations that, together with its principal Kelly Wolfe, it violated the False Claims Act by creating dozens of front companies to submit over $400 million in false claims to government healthcare programs for the sale of DME that was not medically necessary. Defendants were alleged to have paid unlawful kickbacks to doctors and falsely claimed that those doctors provided telehealth services to the beneficiaries, when in most cases the doctors had no interaction at all with the beneficiaries. Wolfe also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and will be sentenced at a later date. Former Regency employee Condra Albright will receive 23% of the civil recovery as a whistleblower reward. DOJ; USAO MD FL

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Criminal Proceedings, FCA Federal, Lack of Medical Necessity, Medical Billing Fraud, Medical Devices and DME, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

February 3, 2021

The former CEO of Texas hospice and home health chain the Merida Group, Henry McInnis, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison following his conviction for healthcare fraud and alleged charges. McInnis and his co-conspirator Rondey Mesquias, who was previously sentenced to 20 years in prison, submitted over $150 million in fraudulent Medicare bills between 2009 and 2018 by falsifying medical records and telling thousands of patients with long-term incurable diseases they had less than six months to live in order to enroll the patients in hospice programs for which they were otherwise unqualified. In addition, McInnis directed Merida’s practice of paying physicians bogus “medical director” fees in exchange for those doctors falsely certifying unqualified patients for hospice and home health, as well as paying improper kickbacks to patient recruiters. DOJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Criminal Proceedings, Healthcare Fraud, Home Health and Hospice, Lack of Medical Necessity,

February 2, 2021

The owner of Mississippi-based Medworx Compounding and Custom Care Pharmacy, Marco Bisa Hawkins Moran, has been sentenced to ten years in prison and ordered to pay $34.3 million in fines and restitution following his guilty plea on charges related to a conspiracy to defraud TRICARE and other healthcare programs. As part of the scheme, which resulted in the submission of $22.1 million in fraudulent claims, Moran and his co-conspirators adjusted prescription formulas to ensure the highest reimbursement, paid marketers and physicians kickbacks and bribes to obtain prescriptions for high-yield compounded medications without regard to medical necessity, and routinely waived and/or reduced the collection of copayments. USAO SD MS

Tagged in: Compounding Pharmacy Fraud, Criminal Proceedings, Lack of Medical Necessity, Pharma Fraud,

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