| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 27, 2008 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
SAN JOSE – United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced that the physician owner and operator of Milpitas Medical Clinic (“MMC”) was sentenced yesterday by United States District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel for perpetrating a scheme that defrauded Medicare of over $1 million for ultrasound tests that were based on his falsified physician orders, which claimed the tests were performed because they were medically necessary.
Armond Tennyson Tollete, of Culver City, California, had previously pleaded guilty on September 19, 2007 to conspiring with four owners and operators of ultrasound testing companies to commit health care fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1349.
Tollete was sentenced to 30 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to Medicare amounting to $909,000.
Tollete previously admitted that he participated in the scheme to defraud Medicare by knowingly submitting claims to Medicare while knowing that the tests for which he billed were not medically necessary, not legitimately ordered by him nor supervised by any physician, not performed by a certified technician, and in some cases, never performed at all. Tollette further admitted that he knew Medicare patients had been recruited to the Milpitas Medical Clinic by promising them free transportation, food, and medical care, along with free “milk” or Ensure, and Chinese ointment or oil. Upon arrival at the clinic, workers at the clinic copied the beneficiaries’ Medicare cards. Other workers held themselves out as physicians and nurses and conducted a cursory examination of the beneficiaries. The four owners of the ultrasound companies previously admitted that as part of the scheme to defraud Medicare they and their employees performed ultrasound tests on the beneficiaries on the premises of MMC without first obtaining a legitimate physician’s order based on medical necessity. In most cases, neither Tollette nor any other physician actually examined the beneficiaries, despite the fact he certified to Medicare that he had done so, and claimed the tests he ordered were necessary to treat the ailment he had diagnosed.
Richard C. Cheng is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case with the assistance of paralegal Lauri Gomez. The prosecution is the result of a two-year investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Further Information:
Case #: CR 05-589-JF
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Joshua Eaton at (415) 436-6958 or by email at Josh.Eaton@usdoj.gov.