Department of Labor issued the following announcement on Nov. 20.
After an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has sentenced Erica Carey – former owner of Long Beach Medi-Spa in Long Beach, California – to three years' probation and ordered her to pay $366,740 in restitution for defrauding a maritime union welfare plan.
EBSA investigators found that Carey submitted fraudulent medical claims, and allowed co-conspirators and brothers Barry and Dalibor Kabov – who owned and operated Global Compounding Pharmacy in West Los Angeles – to use office space at the spa where they wrote prescriptions for members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union-Pacific Maritime Association Welfare Plan.
EBSA investigators found that Carey helped the Kabovs to bill the plan using participants who did not know of, or otherwise, authorize the prescriptions. Carey also provided blank prescription forms to the Kabovs that they used to generate prescriptions falsely billed to the plan. In return, they made more than $360,000 in kickback payments to Carey between January and July 2015.
"These individuals appallingly used and harmed a union-sponsored health plan to further their drug trafficking schemes," said Employee Benefits Security Administration Regional Director Crisanta Johnson, in Los Angeles, California. "The Employee Benefits Security Administration will continue to work diligently with our investigative partners to bring justice to such bad actors and protect the health benefits that hard-working families count on."
EBSA, the Department's Office of the Inspector General, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the IRS jointly investigated the case; and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of California prosecuted the case.
Original source can be found here.