Four Southern California men have been charged with illegally defrauding Medicare of millions through an El Centro clinic in a newly unsealed 30-count indictment, U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy said Tuesday.
Paul Robinson, Levon Tovmassian, Hasmik Senekerimyan and Nazar Muradyan conspired with Gevorg Kupelian and others to commit health care fraud, the indictment alleges, through an El Centro clinic.
“Health care fraud remains a pervasive and destructive trend nationwide, cheating our nation’s taxpayers outs of millions that could be put to better use,” said U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy in a statement. “In conjunction with our colleagues nationwide, we will continue to diligently investigate and prosecute these crimes on the nation’s behalf.”
Kupelian opened the El Centro Clinic and admitted to recruiting a doctor to work as his cover for the clinic while he used his Medicare billing number to submit fraudulent claims, according to the indictment.
He also admitted to paying recruiters to find elderly people in El Centro and convincing them to go to the clinic to have “gauntlets of tests without justification or proper supervision by a physician,” spokeswoman Kelly Thornton said.
Kupelian, who acted as the leader of the clinic, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in a related case.
Licensed physician Robinson, who acted as a nominal owner of the clinic, submitted more than 1,100 claims for Medicare beneficiaries under his billing number between September 2012 and February 2014.
During that time, the clinic garnered more than $2.7 million in claims to Medicare, which resulted in payments of approximately $1.3 million to Robinson, the indictment said. About 75 percent of that money went back to Kupelian, who paid Tovmassian, Senekerimyan, Muradyan and others to make the clinic appear legitimate.
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“Aggressively combating health care fraud continues to remain a top priority of the FBI,” said San Diego FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Birnbaum in a statement. “These indictments demonstrate that utilizing senior citizens as pawns in schemes to defraud Medicare will not be tolerated. The FBI remains committed to working with our partners in order to ensure that Medicare, which provides health care to our nation’s elderly, will be there when they need it the most.”
Tovmassian, who acted as a Physician’s Assistant without a license, treated patients and allegedly ordered unnecessary medical tests. Senekerimyan is accused of falsely claiming to doing administer allergy tests at the clinic and fraudulently completing the allergy test order forms when, in fact, no tests were ever performed.
The defendants face several charges, including health care fraud-related charges and obstruction of a federal audit.
