Telemedicine Case Summaries

Summary of Criminal Charges

Middle District of Florida

• Luis Lacerda, 35, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was charged by information for his role in a health care fraud scheme that resulted in Medicare payments of approximately $54.3 million. Lacerda was the owner of pharmacies in several states, including Cure Pharmacy in Jacksonville, Florida. From in or around 2017 through in or around 2021, Lacerda, through his call center and through the payment of kickbacks and bribes to telemarketing companies, targeted Medicare beneficiaries and encouraged them to accept expensive prescription medications they neither wanted nor needed. He also paid kickbacks and bribes to purported telemedicine companies to obtain signed prescriptions from physicians who had no relationship with the patients, rarely spoke to them, and made no determination of the medical necessity of the prescriptions. Through his pharmacy network, Lacerda caused false and fraudulent claims for the medications to be submitted to Medicare Part D plans. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Gary Winters of the National Rapid Response Strike Force and Assistant United States Attorney David Mesrobian of the Middle District of Florida.
   
• Vincent R. Sperti II, 43, of Oviedo, Florida, was charged by information for his involvement in an approximately $400,000 kickback scheme and with possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Between in or around September 2018 and in or around September 2019, Sperti worked with a purported marketing company that purchased and resold doctors’ orders for braces for Medicare beneficiaries. Sperti and his co-conspirators also purchased Medicare beneficiaries’ personally identifiable information and purported personal health information and paid kickbacks and bribes to purported telemedicine companies to obtain signed doctors’ orders. Additionally, on or about September 30, 2020, Sperti was found in possession of a large volume of illegal steroids, a Schedule III controlled substance. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Catherine Wagner of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.
   
• Renita Brown, 63, of Gadsden, Alabama, was charged by information for referring over $7.3 million in billings to Medicare for medically unnecessary braces. Between in or around January 2018 and in or around October 2018, Brown, a physician, was paid to sign doctors’ orders for braces for Medicare beneficiaries she had no preexisting relationship with, never examined, ran no diagnostic testing on, and in some cases, never spoke with. The braces she prescribed were preselected for her. During that time period, Brown signed over 7,800 doctor’s orders at the request of two purported telemedicine companies. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Catherine Wagner of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.
   

Southern District of Florida

• Luis Perez, 35, of Coral Springs, Florida, and Jestil Tapia, 28, of Parkland, Florida, were charged by indictment with conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive health care kickbacks and payment of kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program. Perez also was charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, and misusing COVID-19 relief funds to pay an approximately $85,000 payment to a luxury car dealership. From in or around January 2019 through in or around August 2020, Perez and Tapia owned and operated a network of DME and marketing companies they used to submit over $18 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for DME, of which over $8 million was paid by Medicare. They submitted false enrollment records, inserted nominee owners of certain DME companies to conceal their interests, paid kickbacks to purported telemedicine and marketing companies, and profited millions from the scheme. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Patrick Queenan of the Miami Strike Force and Trial Attorney Catherine Wagner of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.
   
• Lucia Miranda Oro Taboada, 27, of Boca Raton, Florida, was charged by indictment for her role in a health care fraud and wire fraud conspiracy. From in or around April 2020 to in or around November 2020, Oro allegedly conspired with others to operate two DME companies used to fraudulently bill Medicare over $1.7 million. Oro executed and submitted false enrollment records with Medicare concealing from Medicare the ownership interest and managing control of two co-conspirators, one of whom was a convicted felon. Oro also controlled the banking activities and transferred fraud proceeds from the DME companies to accounts owned and controlled by the beneficial owners. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Patrick Queenan of the Miami Strike Force.
   
• Joseph Dauch, 47, of Parkland, Florida, was charged by information in connection with an approximately $21 million health care fraud scheme. Beginning in or around October 2018, Dauch owned and operated THE CSC LLC, The Medical Screening Center LLC, and Marketing Marauders LLC, three marketing companies through which Dauch and his co-conspirators targeted Medicare beneficiaries for genetic testing. Dauch paid bribes and kickbacks to purported telemedicine companies to obtain signed doctors’ orders prescribing these tests and then sold the patient referrals to laboratories in exchange for kickbacks. The laboratories fraudulently billed Medicare for genetic testing that patients did not need and that was not used to treat the patients. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Jamie DeBoer and Patrick Queenan of the Miami Strike Force.
   
• Jeremy Klein, 36, of Boca Raton, Florida, was charged by information for using the two pharmacies he owned to steal more than $6.1 million from Medicare. From in or around January 2019 through in or around June 2021, Klein and his co-conspirators owned and operated Xpresso Pharmacy in Miramar, Florida, and BOH Pharmacy Group in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. To commit the alleged fraud, Klein purchased “patient leads,” which were lists containing the names and telephone numbers for Medicare beneficiaries. Klein and his co-conspirators then allegedly used call centers to cold call the beneficiaries, encouraging them to accept prescriptions for certain pre-selected, highly reimbursing medications, including topical creams. Next, they paid purported telemedicine companies kickbacks on a per-patient basis in exchange for prescriptions signed by doctors for the pre-selected medications and used those prescriptions to fraudulently bill Medicare. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Alexander Pogozelski of the Miami Strike Force.
   
• Todd Shull, 48, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was charged by information with conspiring to receive illegal kickbacks from a laboratory in exchange for referring expensive genetic testing. From in or around March 2020 through in or around August 2021, Shull conspired with other marketers based in South Florida to sell genetic tests to a laboratory in Colorado. The marketers procured the doctors’ orders by conducting deceptive telemarketing campaigns targeting Medicare beneficiaries. Shull received over $1.3 million in kickbacks, which were derived from the submission of over $3.4 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare. Shull transferred a portion of the kickback proceeds to shell companies owned and controlled by his co-conspirators. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Patrick Queenan of the Miami Strike Force.
   
• Omar Saleh, 36, of Naples, Florida, was charged by information for agreeing to authorize over $2.6 million in billings for medically unnecessary genetic testing orders in exchange for kickbacks. Beginning in or around April 2020, Saleh, a physician, solicited and received kickbacks and bribes in exchange for referring medically unnecessary doctors’ orders for genetic testing to two Texas laboratories. The kickbacks involved beneficiary referrals and the opportunity to bill Medicare for telemedicine visits under the more flexible telehealth rules CMS put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Ligia Markman and Ray Beckering of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.
   
• Kamran Choudhry, 35, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, was charged by information with conspiring to commit health care fraud for his role in a scheme to submit over $1.7 million in false and fraudulent claims for DME. Choudhry owned DME companies. Choudhry and his conspirators executed false enrollment records, paid kickbacks to marketing companies and purported telemedicine companies in exchange for doctors’ orders, and received nearly $1 million in fraudulent proceeds from Medicare. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Patrick Queenan of the Miami Strike Force.
   

Northern District of Georgia

• Brian Tisdale, 45, of Armory, Mississippi, was charged by information for his role in an approximately $5.9 million conspiracy to defraud Medicare and pay kickbacks. Tisdale owned two DME companies. Beginning as early as March 2020, Tisdale engaged in a scheme to pay kickbacks for Medicare beneficiaries’ information and doctors’ orders for DME. A substantial portion of the doctors’ orders purchased by Tisdale contained signatures by physicians or other health care providers whose names and professional identifying information were used without the doctors’ authorization and prior knowledge. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David O’Neal of the Northern District of Georgia.
   

Eastern District of Louisiana

• Jamie McNamara, 47, of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, was charged by indictment for his involvement in a scheme to defraud Medicare of over $174 million by billing for cancer and cardiovascular genetic testing that was medically unnecessary and tainted by kickbacks and to launder the proceeds of the scheme. McNamara operated a series of laboratories in Louisiana and Texas, including Clarity Diagnostic Laboratories LLC, Mercury Laboratory Services, Opteo Laboratory, LLC, and Signify Laboratory, LLC. McNamara paid kickbacks to marketers in exchange for referrals of specimens for testing by the laboratories that were not prescribed by the beneficiary’s treating physician and were not used in treatment of the beneficiaries. Agents have seized over $7 million in bank accounts and several luxury vehicles. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant Chief Justin Woodard and Trial Attorney Kelly Walters of the Gulf Coast Strike Force and Assistant United States Attorney Nick Moses of the Eastern District of Louisiana.
   
• Christopher Thigpen, 48, of Hammond, Louisiana, was charged in a twelve-count indictment for his role in a multi-year, approximately $54 million scheme to defraud Medicare. From in or around March 2014 through in or around January 2021, Thigpen, through his diagnostic laboratories, Akrivis Laboratories, LLC and Dynamic Diagnostics, LLC, is alleged to have submitted thousands of claims for definitive urine drug testing and genetic testing to Medicare that were not medically necessary, not appropriately reimbursable, and tainted by kickbacks. In executing the scheme, Thigpen paid kickbacks to several purported marketing entities in exchange for the referral of doctors’ orders for definitive urine drug testing and genetic testing that Thigpen knew to be medically unnecessary. He took several steps to conceal the fraudulent scheme, including executing sham agreements with purported marketing entities to hide the nature and source of the kickbacks. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Kelly Walters of the Gulf Coast Strike Force and Assistant United States Attorney Nick Moses of the Eastern District of Louisiana.
   

Eastern District of Michigan

• Fawn Munro, 38, of Alpena, Michigan, was charged by indictment for her role in an approximately $3.3 million health care fraud scheme. Beginning in or around July 2018 and continuing through in or around April 2019, Munro, a licensed registered nurse, worked for a purported telemedicine company and signed orders for DME. These referrals were not based on the examination of any patient; rather, they were made on the basis of pre-filled intake forms dictating what DME should go to which beneficiaries and to which DME companies each order would ultimately be sent. The prescribed DME was not medically necessary, was largely unwanted by the beneficiary recipients, and was not eligible for reimbursement by Medicare. In total, Munro’s referrals resulted in Medicare paying over $1.8 million on false and fraudulent claims. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Kathleen Cooperstein of the Detroit Strike Force.
   
• Joseph Hagen, 67, of Dearborn, Michigan, was charged by indictment for his role in an approximately $1.9 million health care fraud scheme. Beginning in or around April 2020 and continuing through in or around March 2021, Hagen, an internal medicine specialist physician, worked for a purported telemedicine company signing doctors’ orders for DME. Hagen did not examine any of the beneficiaries. The doctors’ orders were based on pre-filled intake forms dictating what DME should go to which beneficiaries and to which DME companies each order would ultimately be sent. The prescribed DME was not medically necessary, was largely unwanted by the beneficiary recipients, and was not eligible for reimbursement by Medicare. In total, Hagen’s referrals resulted in Medicare paying over $1 million on these false and fraudulent claims. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Kathleen Cooperstein of the Detroit Strike Force.
   
• Mark Gulow, 66, of Garden, Michigan, was charged by information with health care fraud related to a nearly $3 million dollar scheme to defraud Medicare. Gulow, a physician, worked for a purported telemedicine company during the COVID-19 pandemic and approved over 2,000 orders for DME without performing actual patient assessments to determine whether these individuals needed the prescribed equipment. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Patrick Suter of the Detroit Strike Force.
   

Northern District of Mississippi

• Marion Shaun Lund, 53, of Taylor, Mississippi, was charged by indictment in connection with a health care fraud and kickback scheme. Lund, a podiatrist, owned and operated a podiatry clinic with an in-house pharmacy through which he prescribed medically unnecessary foot bath medications and ordered unnecessary molecular diagnostic testing of toenails. From in or around April 2016 through in or around July 2021, Lund sought to defraud Medicare and TRICARE of more than $3.8 million. In exchange for writing unnecessary prescriptions, Lund solicited and received kickbacks and bribes, often paid in cash, from a purported marketer acting on behalf of various pharmacies and diagnostic laboratories. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Sara Porter and Assistant Chief Justin Woodard of the Gulf Coast Strike Force and Assistant United States Attorney Clay Dabbs of the Northern District of Mississippi.
   

District of New Jersey

• Jean Wilson, 51, of Richmond Hill, Georgia, was charged by superseding indictment with conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive health care kickbacks, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, soliciting and receiving health care kickbacks, conspiracy to commit money laundering, income tax evasion, and filing a false individual tax return. Wilson, a nurse practitioner and purported telemedicine company owner, is alleged to have committed an over $137 million scheme (including over $81 million in newly alleged loss in the superseding indictment) in which she owned and controlled two telemedicine companies, Advantage Choice Care, LLC and Tele Medcare, LLC, that solicited illegal kickbacks and bribes in exchange for medically unnecessary orders for orthotic braces and prescriptions for pain creams. Wilson conspired to launder the proceeds of the funds through shell companies and by hiding cashiers’ checks. She also engaged in income tax evasion by not filing returns and filing of false returns and by hiding and concealing her income earned in part through the scheme. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Darren Halverson and Kelly Lyons of the Newark Strike Force.
   
• Ronnie Spiegel, 44, of Staten, New York, was charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, and conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks for his role in an approximately $18 million health care fraud scheme. From 2019 through 2022, Spiegel, a laboratory representative, paid kickbacks and bribes in exchange for doctors’ orders for medically unnecessary genetic testing. Spiegel also took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic and national emergency by soliciting genetic samples from Medicare beneficiaries who were seeking only COVID-19 tests in their homes and at COVID-19 testing events at retirement communities, senior centers, and assisted living facilities. Spiegel used these genetic samples to cause Medicare to be billed for genetic tests that were medically unnecessary, ineligible for reimbursement, not provided as represented, and/or procured through kickbacks and bribes. The case is being prosecuted by Acting Assistant Chief Rebecca Yuan of the National Rapid Response Strike Force and Trial Attorney Kelly Lyons of the Newark Strike Force.
   
• Henry Rojas, 66, of Hopewell Junction, New York, was charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, and conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks. Rojas, a physician, ordered medically unnecessary genetic testing in exchange for kickbacks and bribes from marketers. Rojas caused Medicare to be billed approximately $7.9 million for genetic testing that was medically unnecessary, ineligible for reimbursement, not provided as represented, and/or procured through kickbacks and bribes. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Kelly Lyons of the Newark Strike Force and Patrick Queenan of the Miami Strike Force.
   
• Ingrid Estephan, 46, of Miami, Florida, was charged by indictment with health care fraud and false statements related to a health care matter. Estephan, a nurse practitioner, was paid by purported telemedicine companies to sign orders for DME for Medicare beneficiaries after only a brief telephonic conversation, or in many instances, no conversation at all, with the Medicare beneficiaries. Estephan caused DME companies to submit more than $4.6 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for DME that was medically unnecessary, ineligible for reimbursement, and/or not provided as represented. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Kelly Lyons of the Newark Strike Force.
   
• Tara Pendergraft, 45, of Chalfont, Pennsylvania, was charged by information for conspiring with others to defraud Medicare by billing for genetic testing that was medically unnecessary, ineligible for reimbursement, not provided as represented, and/or procured through kickbacks and bribes. Pendergraft, a laboratory owner, caused more than $93 million in fraudulent claims to be submitted to Medicare. Medicare paid approximately $14.3 million based on these claims. The case is being prosecuted by Acting Assistant Chief Rebecca Yuan and Trial Attorney S. Babu Kaza of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.
   
• Vinit Patel, 67, of Hoover, Alabama, was charged by information for conspiring to commit health care fraud. Patel, a physician, accepted kickbacks in exchange for ordering genetic testing that was medically unnecessary, ineligible for reimbursement, and/or not provided as represented. He caused more than $3.4 million in fraudulent claims to be submitted to Medicare. The case is being prosecuted by Acting Assistant Chief Rebecca Yuan and Trial Attorney Gary Winters of the National Rapid Response Strike Force.
   

Western District of North Carolina

• Colby Edward Joyner, 34, of Monroe, North Carolina, was charged by indictment for his role in a telemedicine fraud scheme. Joyner, a physician assistant, is alleged to have prescribed medically unnecessary cancer genetic and pharmacogenetic testing for hundreds of North Carolina Medicare beneficiaries. From in or around October 2018 through in or around August 2019, Joyner prescribed genetic testing for Medicare beneficiaries he had never met, seen, or treated, and with whom he may have had only a brief telephone conversation, or no interaction with whatsoever. In connection with these prescriptions, Joyner signed false medical records to conceal that he was not the treating physician, that he did not conduct medical evaluations or examinations, and that the tests were medically unnecessary. As part of the alleged scheme, Joyner caused the submission of false claims to the Medicare program in an amount exceeding $10 million, for which Medicare paid approximately $3.6 million. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Katherine Armstrong and Matthew Warren of the Western District of North Carolina.
   
• Wendy Cipriani, 54, of Clayton, North Carolina, was charged by indictment for her role in a telemedicine fraud scheme, specifically for prescribing medically unnecessary DME. In or around 2019, Cipriani, a physician, is alleged to have worked for physician staffing and telemedicine companies and prescribed DME for Medicare beneficiaries. She falsely stated in those orders that she performed medical examinations of Medicare beneficiaries and falsely certified that the braces were medically necessary. In truth and in fact, Cipriani had little or no interaction with the beneficiaries and made no medical determination whether the devices were medically necessary or the beneficiaries needed the DME. During the scheme, Cipriani caused the submission of nearly $8 million in false claims to Medicare, for which Medicare paid approximately $4.3 million. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Graham Billings of the Western District of North Carolina.
   

Middle District of Tennessee

• John Manning, 61, of Ashland, Tennessee, was charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and health care fraud. Manning, a physician, allegedly worked for multiple purported telemedicine companies, signing doctors’ orders and prescriptions for DME, topical creams, and cancer genetic testing that were used to submit false and fraudulent claims to Medicare. Manning is alleged to have signed the doctors’ orders without establishing a doctor-patient relationship, without seeing or physically examining the beneficiaries, after only a brief telephonic conversation, if any, and without regard for medical necessity. In total, Manning and his co-conspirators caused Medicare to be billed in excess of approximately $41 million for DME, creams, and cancer genetic testing that were not legitimately ordered or prescribed, not medically necessary, not used, and/or induced through unlawful kickbacks and bribes. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Leslie Fisher of the ARPO-South Strike Force and Assistant United States Attorney Robert Levine of the Middle District of Tennessee.
   

Eastern District of Texas

• Susan L. Hertzberg, 64, of New York, New York, Matthew John Theiler, 56, of Mars, Pennsylvania, David Weldon Kraus, 64, of Loudon, Tennessee, Jeffrey Paul Parnell, 54, of Dallas, Texas, Thomas Gray Hardaway, 49, of San Antonio, Texas, Laura Spain Howard, 48, of Allen, Texas, Jeffrey Paul Madison, 47, of Georgetown, Texas, Todd Dean Cook, 57, of Wimauma, Florida, William Todd Hickman, 59, of Lumberton, Texas, Christopher Roland Gonzales, 45, of McKinney, Texas, Ruben Daniel Marioni, 37, of Spring, Texas, Jordan Joseph Perkins, 38, of Conroe, Texas, Elizabeth Ruth Seymour, 39, of Corinth, Texas, Linh Ba Nguyen, 58, of Dallas, Texas, Thuy Ngoc Nguyen, 54, of Dallas, Texas, Joseph Gil Bolin, 50, of Dallas, Texas, Heriberto Salinas, 62, of Cleburne, Texas, and Hong Davis, 54, of Lewisville, Texas, were indicted for their roles in a wide-ranging kickback scheme. Peter Bennett, 47, of Houston, Texas, and Stephen Kash, 48, of Winnie, Texas, were each separately indicted for conspiracy to commit money laundering for their roles in allegedly laundering the proceeds of the kickback scheme. Robert O’Neal, 63, of San Antonio, Texas, was charged by information with conspiracy to pay illegal remunerations and conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to the charging documents, two Texas critical access hospitals partnered with a clinical laboratory that specialized in blood testing. For a fee, the clinical laboratory allowed the hospitals to bill their blood tests to insurers as purported hospital outpatient services, which reimbursed at a higher rate. The hospitals utilized a network of marketers who, in turn, operated management services organizations (“MSOs”) that offered investment opportunities to physicians throughout the State of Texas. According to the charging documents, the MSOs were in actuality a means to facilitate kickback payments to physicians in return for the physicians’ laboratory referrals. Between on or about July 1, 2015, and on or about January 9, 2018, at least $11,256,241.68 in illegal kickback payments were exchanged by the defendants in furtherance of the conspiracy. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Nathaniel Kummerfeld and Kevin McClendon of the Eastern District of Texas.
   

Southern District of Texas

• Emylee Thai, 37, of Santa Ana, California, was charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive health care kickbacks, and payment of kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program. Beginning in or around 2019, Thai, a laboratory owner, allegedly contracted with marketers to refer signed doctors’ orders and beneficiary DNA samples to the laboratory in exchange for a percentage of the reimbursements. The genetic testing, for which Medicare often paid several thousands of dollars per beneficiary, was not medically necessary and often was not used in a beneficiary’s medical treatment. During this time period, Thai’s laboratory billed Medicare approximately $142 million for genetic testing and was paid approximately $95 million on those claims. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Andrew Tamayo of the Houston Strike Force.