A former Downtown loft-dweller has been fined $4 million and ordered to serve three years in federal prison for his part in a scheme to defraud the publicly subsidized Medicare and Medi-Cal healthcare systems by providing bogus treatments to homeless individuals and others in the Skid Row district of Downtown.
A federal judge sentenced Robert Bourseau on February 22, wrapping up a criminal case against him. A court had earlier ordered Bourseau and Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, a resident of the upscale Brentwood district on the Westside, to pay a $10 million fine to the federal government as part of a civil lawsuit.
"This offense is extraordinarily serious," said U.S. District Judge George H. King. "Society must know that those who abuse the health care system must answer for that conduct in court."
The judge concluded that Bourseau "abused the system that he knew for his own private gain," adding that such fraud "degrades" the public health care system, putting it in a "precarious" situation.
Sabaratnam has also pleaded guilty to criminal charges and is awaiting sentencing.
The two are former owners of the City of Angels Medical Center, which operated in the Echo Park district northwest of Downtown and has more recently come under new management and changed names. Among the charges to which Bourseau and Sabaratnam pleaded guilty are accusations that they recruited homeless individuals in the Skid Row district of Downtown for unnecessary medical treatments, then fraudulently billed the Medicare and Medi-Cal systems.
The scheme employed paid "recruiters" employed at homeless shelters in Skid Row to deliver homeless clients by ambulance to the hospital in Echo Park, according to federal officials.
A former senior executive of City of Angels Medical Center and two of the "recruiters" have also pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the scheme.
Federal prosecutors also alleged that payments made by City of Angels Medical centers to the recruiters constituted illegal inducements in violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. The federal law prohibits certain types of payments or incentives that are intended to induce the referral of patients for health services paid for by the federal government.
Prohibitions against illegal kickbacks are important to ensure that financial motives do not undermine the integrity of the medical judgment of physicians and other healthcare workers, said Tony West, a spokesperson for the Justice Department.
Related article:
• $10 Million Fine for Upscale Skid Row Scammers
Sam Hassan is a writer for the L.A. Garment & Citizen.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
Read more stories from the L.A. Garment & Citizen »
Leave a comment