United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

1100 Commerce St., 3rd Fl.
Dallas, Texas 75242-1699

Telephone (214) 659-8600
Fax (214) 767-0978

Fort Worth Physician Sentenced in Federal Court

United States Attorney Jane J. Boyle announced that Fort Worth, Texas, resident, Dr. Victor Eugene McCall, age 69, a board-certified/licensed radiologist, was sentenced yesterday by the Honorable United States District Judge Terry R. Means to six months imprisonment to be followed by six months home confinement, following his guilty plea in December 2001 to subscribing to a false income tax return under penalties of perjury. Dr. McCall was also ordered to pay $233,720 restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Court granted the government's motion for downward departure noting the substantial assistance Dr. McCall provided to the government during the investigation.

According to court documents, Dr. McCall admitted that he willfully signed and filed a joint 1999 federal income tax return that he knew understated his income by $799,000. Part of the omitted income consisted of various amounts of monies he received from fraudulently submitted medical claims made by Dr. Mark Allen Darner, and others. In fact, McCall admitted that he knew those funds were proceeds of an unlawful activity, yet kept them instead of returning them to the rightful owner. Dr. Darner, a licensed chiropractor, was convicted of mail fraud in connection with this investigation and is presently serving his five-year sentence. He was also ordered to pay $2,748,881.43 in restitution. Dr. Darner admitted that he was involved in a conspiracy with others to defraud patients and various insurance companies by submitting false claims for medical services claimed to have been performed and receiving payment for these services from those insurers.

Three other defendants, involved in the same scheme, have been convicted. In May 2003, Dr. James Mark Murphy, 46, and Joseph Robert Kirkham, 45, both Oklahoma residents, were convicted by a federal jury in Fort Worth on a health care fraud charge. At that trial, government witnesses, including Dr. Victor McCall, supported assertions in the indictment that Dr. James Murphy, Joseph Robert Kirkham, and others, using various medical doctors' names and credentials, submitted fraudulent medical claims to numerous insurance companies from 1996 to 2000. The medical clinics were operated inside of health clubs in Fort Worth, Bedford, Arlington, Sherman, and Bedford, Texas. The other defendant, Dr. Alvin Lostetter, 65, an anesthesiologist formerly of Fort Worth, but now residing in Laredo, Texas, did not testify in the trial but he has also pled guilty in connection with this investigation. Dr. Lostetter, Dr. Murphy, and Joseph Robert Kirkham are scheduled to be sentenced on October 6, 2003.

The entire scheme not only defrauded insurance companies of millions of dollars, but deprived patients of the full, honest medical care they thought they were receiving.

United States Attorney Boyle praised the exemplary investigative work conducted jointly by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the United States Postal Inspection Service; the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General; the United States Department of Labor; and the Texas Department of Insurance. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ronald C.H. Eddins.

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