IOWA: A Cedar Rapids chiropractor has pleaded not guilty to nearly 40 charges of mail fraud, identity theft and money laundering.
Douglas P. Dvorak entered his plea in early October in federal court in Cedar Rapids.
An indictment alleges that 45-year-old Dvorak submitted false Medicaid claims for chiropractic services he never provided. It says he used the identities of underaged Medicaid beneficiaries in his alleged scheme, which officials say lasted from late 2005 to early 2007.
Dvorak also is accused of trying to control and conceal the location of the proceeds of the fraud.
He faces 22 counts of mail fraud, 11 counts of aggravated identity theft and six counts of money laundering.
His trial was scheduled for December 1.
The Associated Press
Chiropractor Agrees to $321,000 Settlement
over Medi-Cal
CALIFORNIA: Oroville chiropractor Steven Horn has agreed to pay federal and state governments a total of $321,726 to settle a civil claim that he charged the Medi-Cal program for a lot more patient visits than the law allows. The program covers up to two chiropractic visits a month for each beneficiary.
Horn, 52, charged Medi-Cal for more than 5,000 visits above the cap, despite his knowledge of the legal limit, according to Assistant U. S. Attorney Catherine Swann.
Medi-Cal is the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program, created by Congress in 1965 to provide payments of medical expenses for low-income patients. In California, the program is funded half with federal funds and half with state funds.
Horn, who operates Chiropractic Health Clinics of California in Oroville, agreed to the settlement, but denies any wrongdoing.
Sacto 9-1-1
Overwhelmed Chiropractor Gets 4 Months
for Alleged $340,000 Theft
PENNSYLVANIA: Chiropractor Matthew Nicastro wept as he begged a Cumberland County judge not to send him to prison for a $340,000 insurance fraud that Nicastro claimed resulted from negligent bookkeeping. “I did not intend to victimize anyone,” he told Judge Skip Ebert.
Nicastro, 36, of Boiling Springs, even had two patients, one a high school principal, testify about how well he treated them.
He did squeeze some leniency from Ebert. Although the prosecution demanded a 6-month prison term, Ebert sentenced Nicastro to 4 to 23 months in county prison and fined him $1,500 on charges of insurance fraud and theft by deception.
Nicastro pleaded no contest to the theft and fraud counts in July for what authorities said was a billing scam. Investigators said Nicastro billed insurers multiple times for the same services, billed for work he didn’t perform and charged for ineligible work done by massage therapists.
Defense attorney Heidi F. Eakin said Nicastro has paid more than $318,000 in restitution to Highmark Blue Shield and roughly $22,000 to Erie Insurance. Eakin said she expects the state to suspend indefinitely his license to practice.
Nicastro told Ebert it was all an unintentional mistake. He became overwhelmed at work and allowed his billing system to fall into disarray, he said.
Big Spring High School Principal John Scudder told Ebert that he was “tremendously impressed by the professionalism and integrity” Nicastro exhibited while treating him. “He didn’t press me for extra charges or anything of that sort.”
Senior Assistant District Attorney Geoffrey McInroy opposed Nicastro’s and Eakin’s pleas for a probation sentence and urged Ebert to stick with the 6-month prison term set in the July plea deal. That already was less than the 9-month minimum prison term that would be standard for such an offense, he said.
The Patriot News
Jury Convicts Chiropractor of Concealing Property, Making False Declarations and Money Laundering
CALIFORNIA: A jury sitting in the Eastern District of California convicted Thomas M. Klassy on two separate counts of concealing property and making a false declaration in a bankruptcy case and 26 counts of laundering the proceeds of the bankruptcy crimes. Evidence at trial was introduced to show that Klassy falsely denied owning numerous valuable assets during his bankruptcy case including an airplane, a one-third interest in a 220 acre ranch and $205,000 he received from the sale of his chiropractic business. As for the business sale, further evidence showed that Klassy concealed the real $265,000 sale contract and instead produced to the bankruptcy trustee a forged contract purporting to show that the business sold for only $60,000.
The conviction ended a three week trial before U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England, Jr., in Sacramento. Klassy is being detained pending sentencing.
The Trinity Journal