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Justice Department Announces Nationwide Coordinated Law Enforcement Action to Combat COVID-19 Health Care Fraud

 

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Summary of Criminal Charges

Central District of California

-    Imran Shams and Lourdes Navarro, both 63, of Glendale, California, were charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to pay and payment of illegal kickbacks and bribes, false statements to Medicare, and money laundering, for their roles in an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare of over $214 million for laboratory tests, including nearly $144 million in false and fraudulent claims during the COVID-19 health emergency for COVID-19 and respiratory pathogen tests that were submitted without regard to medical necessity. Shams and Navarro owned and controlled Matias Clinical Laboratory, Inc., dba Health Care Providers Lab (Matias), a clinical laboratory that performed and billed Medicare for urinalysis, routine blood work, and other tests, despite the fact that Shams had been excluded from all participation in Medicare for several decades. The indictment alleges that Shams and Navarro fraudulently concealed Shams’s role in the lab and his prior health care-related criminal convictions. The indictment also alleges that Shams and Navarro paid kickbacks to marketers who obtained specimens and test orders, and laundered the proceeds of the scheme through shell companies Navarro controlled, including by making expenditures on real estate, luxury items, and personal goods and services. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Gary A. Winters and Raymond E. Beckering, III of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.

-    Artur Chanchikyan, 54, of Los Angeles, California, was charged by indictment with wire fraud, theft of government property, and concealment money laundering offenses in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud the United States of approximately $345,000 in COVID-19 relief monies. Chanchikyan, the owner and operator of Gentle Touch Home Health Care Inc., formerly a home health agency, allegedly filed fraudulent loan applications with both the SBA and a financial institution seeking COVID-19 relief funds, falsely attested to the use of additional funds provided under the CARES Act Provider Relief Fund, and then misused the funds for his own personal use and benefit and the benefit of others. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Patrick J. Queenan of the Miami Strike Force.

Northern District of California

-    Jason Costanza, 46, of El Campo, Texas, was charged by indictment with conspiracy and making false statements in connection with an alleged scheme to offer fake cures for COVID-19 and distribute fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards. Costanza was the office manager for Juli Mazi, a naturopathic doctor, and conspired with her to offer and sell products known as “homeoprophylaxis immunizations” that she claimed would provide a complete cure for COVID-19. In furtherance of the scheme, Costanza and Mazi provided customers with fraudulent vaccine record cards to falsely make it appear that customers received government-approved vaccines. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Babu Kaza of the National Rapid Response Strike Force and Assistant U.S. Attorney Katie Lloyd-Lovett of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

-    Jaimi Jansen, 40, of Santa Cruz, California, was charged by information with making false statements related to health care matters in connection with an alleged scheme to offer fake cures for COVID-19 and distribute fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards. Jansen was the owner of an integrative health and wellness center in Santa Cruz, California. According to the charges, Jansen functioned as a distributor for Juli Mazi, a naturopathic doctor who offered and sold products known as “homeoprophylaxis immunizations” that she claimed would provide a complete cure for COVID-19, and provided customers with fraudulent CDC COVID-19 vaccination record cards to falsely make it appear that customers received FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines. Jansen allegedly purchased and repackaged for distribution Mazi’s homeoprophylaxis immunization pellets and fake CDC COVID-19 vaccination record cards, providing them to approximately 170 recipients. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Babu Kaza of the National Rapid Response Strike Force and Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Lloyd-Lovett of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

-    Ranna Shamiya, 41, of Ukiah, California, was charged by information with making false statements related to health care matters in connection with an alleged scheme to offer fake cures for COVID-19 and distribute fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards. Shamiya, a licensed advanced practice pharmacist, was the Director of Pharmacy at a hospital in the Northern District of California. According to the information, Shamiya became aware that Juli Mazi, a naturopathic doctor, offered and sold products known as “homeoprophylaxis immunizations” that she claimed would provide a complete cure for COVID-19, and provided customers with fraudulent CDC COVID-19 vaccination record cards to falsely make it appear that customers received FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines. In order to assist Mazi’s scheme, Shamiya allegedly used her access to controlled medical information as the Director of Pharmacy at a hospital in the Northern District of California to identify legitimate lot numbers for FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines, and transmitted that information to Mazi, so that Mazi could use the lot numbers to create fake CDC COVID-19 vaccination record cards that falsely appeared to reflect that Mazi’s customers received an FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine with a real lot number, when they in fact did not receive such a vaccine. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Babu Kaza of the National Rapid Response Strike Force and Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Lloyd-Lovett of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

-   Jason Nielsen, 53, of Scotts Valley, California was charged by information with securities fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud investors and potential investors in Arrayit, a publicly traded medical technology company. Nielsen was a large Arrayit shareholder, and deceived Arrayit investors by communicating materially false and misleading information the existence of genuine supply and demand for Arrayit securities and the nature of his personal financial stake in Arrayit securities, all in order to fraudulently induce other investors to purchase Arrayit securities and thereby drive up the stock’s price. All the while, Nielsen was secretly selling his own previously acquired shares at an artificially inflated price. The case is being prosecuted by Acting Principal Assistant Chief Justin Weitz, Assistant Chief Jacob Foster, and Trial Attorney Laura Connelly of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lloyd Farnham of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

District of Maryland

-    Ron K. Elfenbein, 47, of Arnold, Maryland, was charged by indictment with three counts of health care fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud the United States of more than $1.5 million in claims that were billed in connection with COVID-19 testing. Elfenbein was one of the owners and the medical director of Drs ERGent Care, LLC, d/b/a First Call Medical Center and Chesapeake ERgent Care. Elfenbein allegedly instructed employees of Drs ERgent Care to submit claims to Medicare and other insurers for moderate-complexity office visits even though Elfenbein knew that for some or all of the COVID-19 testing patients those visits lasted five minutes or less. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney D. Keith Clouser of the National Rapid Response Strike Force and Assistant United States Attorney Matthew P. Phelps of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland.

Southern District of Florida

-    Elizabeth Mercedes Hernandez, 43, of Miami, Florida, an advanced registered nurse practitioner, was charged by indictment in connection with an alleged health care fraud and wire fraud conspiracy that resulted in the submission of over $134 million dollars of false and fraudulent claims to Medicare. This included claims resulting from Hernandez and her co-conspirators taking advantage of Medicare’s relaxed telemedicine rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, which were designed to enable access to care during the public health emergency. Hernandez allegedly signed an enormous volume of doctor’s orders for medically unnecessary genetic testing and durable medical equipment in exchange for kickbacks in the form of sham telehealth consultation fees and the opportunity to bill Medicare, under the COVID-19 telemedicine waivers, for telemedicine consultations that Hernandez did not perform as represented to Medicare. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Andrea Savdie of the Miami Strike Force. 

-    Jason Edward Lopez, 38, of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, was indicted for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay health care kickbacks, paying health care kickbacks, and wire fraud. These charges stem from Lopez allegedly billing Medicare for $2,598,318 worth of medically unnecessary doctors’ orders for durable medical equipment and submitting a false application for $105,800 of COVID-19 relief funding. Lopez paid kickbacks to marketing companies in exchange for the doctors’ orders that were obtained by soliciting the durable medical equipment to Medicare beneficiaries that did not need or want it. In June 2020, Lopez applied for a $105,800 Economic Injury Disaster Loan for one of his companies that he used to bill for the medically unnecessary doctors’ orders. In the application, Lopez allegedly claimed to have several employees that the company did not have and listed gross revenues that derived from the kickback scheme. This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Reginald Cuyler Jr. of the Miami Strike Force. 

District of New Jersey

-    Lisa Hammell, 39, of Turnersville, New Jersey, an employee of the U.S. Postal Service, was charged by indictment with an alleged conspiracy to defraud the United States and fraud in connection with identification documents for her role in creating and distributing to others fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination record cards. Beginning in or around March 2021, Hammell allegedly sold fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination record cards that she created by designing a COVID-19 vaccination record card and printing dozens of fraudulent cards while working at a post office. Hammell allegedly sold at least 400 fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards to unvaccinated people. As alleged in the indictment, the goal of the conspiracy was to undermine the CDC’s function of administering the COVID-19 vaccination program and ensuring that genuine COVID-19 vaccination cards containing accurate information are distributed to vaccine recipients only by authorized providers. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Kelly M. Lyons and Darren C. Halverson of the Newark Strike Force.

-    Abid Syed, Tariq Din, Tamer Mohamed, Abdul Rauf, Tauqir Khan, and Nisim Davydov, all of New Jersey, were charged by criminal complaint with conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute for their roles in an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare by paying illegal kickbacks and bribes of over $250,000 for laboratory tests for COVID-19 pathogen tests. Syed and Din owned and controlled Metpath, a clinical laboratory in Parsippany, New Jersey, which performed and billed Medicare for COVID-19 diagnostic testing. Khan, Mohamed, and Davydov were marketers who supplied thousands of COVID-19 diagnostic tests to Metpath and who received kickbacks and bribes from Syed and Din for doing so. The complaint alleges that Methpath tried to conceal its kickback payments to the marketers through shell companies set up and controlled by Rauf. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney DeNae Thomas of the Health Care Fraud Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.

Eastern District of New York

-    Dr. Perry Frankel, 64, of Roslyn, New York, was charged by indictment with health care fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid of over $1.3 million in claims that were billed during the COVID-19 health emergency in connection with COVID-19 testing. Frankel, a cardiologist and the owner and operator of Advanced Cardiovascular Diagnostics PLLC, allegedly caused the submission of claims to Medicare and Medicaid for office visits that were not performed for patients who received COVID-19 tests performed at Advanced Cardiovascular Diagnostics PLLC’s mobile testing sites across Long Island, including on dates when Frankel was not present in the state of New York. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Kelly M. Lyons of the Newark Strike Force and Patrick J. Campbell of the Brooklyn Strike Force.

Western District of Tennessee 

-    Raymond Earl Vallier, 52, of Collierville, Tennessee was indicted with theft of government property and aggravated identity theft in connection with a scheme to unlawfully convert CARES Act Provider Relief Fund monies. Vallier was the former owner and operator of North Delta Hospice and Palliative Services LLC, a hospice care center, which, on April 10, 2020, received $107,568.03 from the Provider Relief Fund. North Delta Hospice had ceased seeing patients and billing Medicare and Medicaid by the end of September 2019. According to the indictment, rather than returning the funds deposited, as North Delta Hospice did not qualify for the Provider Relief Fund Payment, the defendant used the name of the deceased owner of North Delta Hospice to falsely attest to the terms and conditions of the Provider Relief Fund — claiming that the funds would be used for expenses related to the treatment of COVID-19 patients — and wrote a check to himself and made a payment on one of his other company’s credit card accounts with the funds. This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Sara E. Porter of the Gulf Coast Strike Force and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Arvin of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee.

Western District of Washington

-   Robert Van Camp, 53, of Parker, Colorado, was charged by criminal complaint with conspiracy to defraud the United States and trafficking in counterfeit goods in connection with an alleged scheme to produce and sell fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards. Van Camp allegedly obtained and then used a blank COVID-19 vaccination record card to forge hundreds of fake vaccination record cards, which he sold to buyers and distributors in at least a dozen states. Van Camp allegedly told an undercover agent that he had sold cards to “people that are going to the Olympics in Tokyo, three Olympians and their coach in Tokyo, Amsterdam, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Honduras.  I’ve got a company, a veterinary company, has 30 people going to Canada every fucking day, Canada back.  Mexico is big.  And like I said, I’m in 12 or 13 states, so until I get caught and go to jail, fuck it, I’m taking the money, (laughs)!  I don’t care.” To conceal the scheme, Van Camp allegedly referred to the fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards using code names, such as “gift card,” “restaurant gift card,” and “consulting.” Van Camp allegedly made thousands of dollars from the sale of fake vaccination record cards, some of which he sold for $175 each. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Babu Kaza and Chris Wenger of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.

District of Utah 

-    Linda Tufui Toli, 28, of Salt Lake City, a former employee of the pre-flight COVID testing service “XpresCheck” in the Salt Lake City International Airport terminal, was charged by criminal information with wire fraud for providing counterfeit negative test results to travelers. Toli allegedly intercepted calls from travelers who were seeking COVID testing services from XpresCheck prior to traveling to destinations such as Hawaii, Israel, and other locations which required travelers to provide negative COVID test results prior to departure. Toli allegedly canceled the travelers COVID tests through XpresCheck and arranged for travelers to purchase counterfeit negative COVID tests directly from her, and accepted payment for the counterfeit test results using electronic mobile payment services. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Bouton of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah.

Updated September 26, 2023