Indian American
Doctor Gets 16 Years for Health Fraud
WASHINGTON:
Last week we reported that a Pakistani doctor had absconded from
Nebraska after causing the largest Hepatitis C epidemic in the
US and the Nebraska State authorities had brought charges against
him. He landed in Pakistan and became the Health Minister of the
largest Punjab province. Of course, he denied the charges.
Now
comes the news that an Indian American doctor has been sentenced
to 16 years in jail for health fraud running into millions of
dollars.
IANS
reports that Surinder Singh Panshi, 54, of South Orange, New Jersey,
was sentenced for cheating California's 'Medi-Cal' program. He
will be lodged in a California state prison.
Panshi,
a doctor, and 28 others were accused in June last year by California
attorney general Bill Lockyer of carrying out a massive healthcare
fraud scheme that involved stealing from California's Medi-Cal
program. more than $11 million.
The
accusations that came after a two-year probe into the bi-coastal
fraud ring, included illegal trafficking in blood to endanger
public health and stealing from the state's healthcare program.
designed to help over 6.5 million poor, elderly and disabled Californians.
The
felony complaints were filed against 16 individuals and 13 medical
laboratories and businesses operating in Los Angeles, Riverside
and Orange Counties.
Six
individuals, including Panshi, were arrested on the East Coast
in the states of New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Virginia and
extradited to California for prosecution.
Six
others were arrested in southern California by the Attorney General's
Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse.
"Scam
artistes who use medical laboratories to rip off the Medi-Cal
system not only steal from the poor but also endanger others by
building a black market for blood," Lockyer said at that
time.
"Cracking
down on these organized schemes is important to ridding the lab
industry of Medi-Cal fraud and stop the illegal trafficking of
blood."
The
29 defendants were charged with 104 felonies, including conspiracy
to cheat and commit acts endangering public health, grand theft,
submitting false claims to Medi-Cal and Medicare, identity theft,
money laundering, tax evasion, creating a false financial statement,
and the illegal transmitting of money overseas without a license.
Panshi
pled guilty in January this year to three counts of MediCal fraud
in Orange County, California.
He
had earlier been convicted of fraud in New York and spent five
years in prison.
Panshi
is said to have run a scam for two years during the 1980s when
he purchased blood from addicts and charged the state for thousands
of blood tests.
Having
lost his license to practice, Panshi, however, went on to more
fraud after serving his sentence, going into the laboratory business
where labs he controlled took blood from unsuspecting patients
and even children.
Judge
Ronald P. Kreber of Orange County Superior Court also ordered
Panshi to pay back $2.5 million to Medi-Cal, and some $124,000
in taxes.
Several
others who were arrested with Panshi have been sentenced already.
Much of the money that the labs got from the fraud tests has still
not been recovered, officials say.- IANS
