A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted the owner of a medical clinic of healthcare fraud and money laundering for billing Medicare more than $3.4 million in the names of four physicians whose identities were stolen, the U.S. attorney's office there announced.
Prosecutors alleged Manuk Karapetyan, 46, submitted thousands of claims for more than 800 patients supposedly treated at a nonexistent clinic, USA Independent Medical Corp.
Medicare paid Karapetyan $566,000 by the time the fraud was discovered, and he wired tens of thousands to accounts in his home country of Armenia, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release. An investigation was triggered when the people listed as patients on the claims received perplexing statements from Medicare and complained to their doctors and Medicare.
Karapetyan, who has been in custody since April 2009, faces a maximum sentence of 320 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced June 21.
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