Doctor Sentenced For Participating In $30 Million Scheme To Defraud Medicare And Medicaid
ttps://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/doctor-sentenced-participating-30-million-scheme-defraud-medicare-and-medicaid
Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of New York
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Doctor Sentenced For Participating In $30 Million Scheme To Defraud Medicare And Medicaid
Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that physician EWALD J. ANTOINE was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield to one year and one day in prison for his participation in a $30 million scheme to defraud Medicare and the New York State Medicaid Program. ANTOINE falsely posed as the owner of two medical clinics, which were actually owned by a corrupt businessman, and falsely claimed that he had examined and treated hundreds of patients whom he had not in fact seen. ANTOINE pled guilty on January 11, 2018, to health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud.
(snip)
Between 2007 and 2013, Aleksandr Burman owned and operated six medical clinics in Brooklyn (the “Clinics”) that fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid approximately $30 million for medical services and supplies that were not provided, were provided without regard to medical necessity, or were otherwise fraudulently billed. Under New York State law, medical clinics must be owned and operated by a medical professional. To circumvent this requirement, Burman, who was not a medical professional, hired doctors to pose as the nominal owners of each of the Clinics. ANTOINE was one of those doctors, agreeing to sign a variety of fraudulent documents that falsely represented to banks, Medicare, Medicaid, and others that ANTOINE was the sole owner of Sunlight Medical and Psychiatric Services, P.C., and Coney Island Medical Services, P.C., two of the six Clinics. ANTOINE and his co-conspirators also helped prepare false medical records to support fraudulent reimbursement claims submitted to Medicare and Medicaid. ANTOINE signed medical charts falsely stating that he had examined patients, and wrote prescriptions and referrals for medically unnecessary and/or non-existent tests and supplies.
* * *
In addition to the prison term, ANTOINE, 67, of Valley Stream, New York, was sentenced to three years of supervised release. Judge Schofield also ordered ANTOINE to pay restitution of $1,825,544 and to forfeit $269,412 in ill-gotten gains.
(snip)
