BATON ROUGE MAN FALSELY HOLDING HIMSELF AS A MEDICAL DOCTOR PLEADS GUILTY TO FALSE STATEMENTS RELATING TO HEALTH CARE MATTERS

Acting United States Attorney April M. Leon announced that Samrat Mukherjee, 35, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles to false statements relating to health care matters. Mukherjee’s conviction is punishable by a term of imprisonment of five years, a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater, and a term of supervised release of three years.

According to admissions made as a part of his guilty plea, Mukherjee was a licensed paramedic who worked for Acadian Ambulance Service, Inc. Mukherjee did not attend or graduate from medical school. However, he admitted that while employed by Acadian Ambulance he falsely held himself out to co-workers and friends as a licensed medical doctor. In order to perpetuate his lies, Mukherjee created a fake medical degree, fake residency match letter, and attended a celebration for his medical school graduation, despite having never attended medical school.

By falsely holding himself out as a medical doctor, Mukherjee was given physician access privileges at several hospitals where he spent time seeing patients in the intensive care unit, among other areas of the hospital. Mukherjee wore “M.D.” and “Flight Surgeon” insignia on his clothing and was given badges from area hospitals and Acadian Ambulance identifying him as a physician.

From in or around May 2019, and continuing through in or around November 2022, Mukherjee called in prescriptions to various pharmacies for himself and others. In doing so, he falsely and fraudulently claimed to be two doctors and had authority to write the prescriptions. Mukherjee caused the pharmacies to submit claims to health care benefit programs, including Medicaid and BCBSLA, for reimbursement.

In one example, on or about October 3, 2022, he wrote a prescription for Ondansetron-ODT, 4mg tablets for a patient who was undergoing cancer treatment at the time and forged the signature of a doctor on the prescription. Aside from his lack of medical school education and certification required to write the prescription himself, Mukherjee did not consult with the patient’s oncologist before writing the prescription and did not have the authority of the doctor to write the prescription.

Acting U.S. Attorney April M. Leon for the Middle District of Louisiana, Supervisory Official Matt Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Special Agent in Charge Jason E. Meadows of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) made the announcement.

The case was investigated by HHS-OIG and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen L. Craig, Trial Attorney Samantha E. Usher, and Assistant Chief Justin M. Woodard.

The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. Since March 2007, this program, currently comprised of nine strike forces operating in 27 federal districts, has charged more than 5,400 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $27 billion. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes. More information can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.