Articles Posted in White Collar Crimes

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Here’s a twist on the old saying, “it’s like pulling teeth!” A former Massachusetts dentist will now need a criminal defense attorney to defend against charges of “clipping” teeth..

I am referring to Michael C., 51, a dentist formerly of Fall River, but now of Maryland (hereinafter, the “Defendant”). Boston’s Attorney General has indicted the Defendant for a number of fraudulent…and related…criminal acts.

In short, the Defendant is charged with allegedly using paper clips in dental work and then billing Medicaid for the stainless steel posts he should have used. The Defendant also stands indicted on a charge of submitting additional false claims to the Medicaid program using other dentists’ provider numbers and illegally prescribing prescription drugs.

The complainants of the charges are two-fold. One, of course, is the program that was billed. The other are the actual patients who allegedly received the “treatment”.
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Yesterday, I had to go to a local Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. Now, I am a lawyer. I have some idea of how some of these things should work. I am also somewhat knowledgeable about the system, bureaucracy and red tape, including how simple things can be made very unsimple. The result? I walked out about 2 hours later (the ticket I was handed said I would be seen in 8 minutes) and with my goal still not reached. Not only that, but this inconvenience resulted in the first time I saw the clerk perform what I took to beng the closest she ever came to a smile.

What can one do? Well, today I can take the small step of delivering a blog about the RMV!

Well, sort of.

I direct your attention to Framingham, where sits a Middlesex grand jury which has returned indictments recently against Mr. Ahmed S., 30, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”). He had been arrested a month earlier due to an investigation which apparently revealed that he was falsifying drivers’ licenses, the AG’s office said.
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More bad choices in the Boston area. Another defendant who needed a lawyer.

And now…another statistic. one more white collar conviction.

Richard W., 42 (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) apparently worked as a practice assistant in the ear, nose and throat department of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. From January 2006 through April 2009, he is said to have stolen more than $1 million by stealing checks written to the department and by seeking fraudulent refunds for hearing aids and other items.

This is called the white collar crime of embezzlement.

On the 3rd, the Defendant pleaded guilty before the Honorable United States District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro to one count of health care theft and embezzlement, the US attorney’s office said in a statement.
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Message from a Boston criminal defense attorney to Ms. Kimberly J., 38 (hereinafter, the :Defendant”) – it is not as bad as you think.

It is actually worse.

The Defendant had been wanted by Massachusetts law enforcement in the alleged kidnapping Thursday of her half-sister’s one-year-old daughter. She has been apprehended in Altona, Pennsilvania and immediately arrested by investigating officers. The Defendant had been staying at a women’s shelter where she is said to have been using an alias and a stolen I.D.

Lest you think she is inconsistent, though, she was also allegedly driving a stolen vehicle .

The one that was apparently used in the abduction.
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George P., a 48-year-old man from Medford, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”), has been indicted by a Suffolk County Grand Jury in Boston. This means that if he has a court-appointed lawyer, he or she had best be “superior court certified”. Somehow, though, given the charges…the Department of Probation may not find him indigent.

He is charged with stealing millions of dollars from former employers and covering those thefts by overbilling his clients. Specifically, the charge is four counts of larceny over $250 and procurement fraud. When he was arraigned in district court in December, he was released on $25,000 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned in superior court later this month.

Unbeknownst to the Defendant, the attorney general’s office had been investigating him for months. They were looking into his actions while under the employment of two construction management companies. The Commonwealth claims that, while serving as vice president of a company in the Greater Boston area, he “routinely submitted reimbursement requests that contained fake receipts, invoices, and correspondence.”

The company allegedly relied on the Defendant’s documentation and paid him several million dollars in reimbursements from 2007 until his departure in January 2009.
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Police have arrested three men over their alleged involvement in a Massachusetts ATM theft scam. Ivaylo Hristov, Anton Venkov, and Vladislav Vladev are accused of being part of a fraud ring that allegedly has stolen, according to Quincy police, hundreds of thousands of dollars from numerous victims in the Greater Boston Area.

The three men allegedly engaged in “skimming,” which involves people using bank-card readers and tiny cameras to retrieve people’s bank and pin information. The data can then be downloaded onto a card that has a magnetic strip. The card can then work as an ATM card to the victim’s bank account.

Police arrested Hristov, 28, at Citizens Bank in Quincy where he allegedly stole $500 from someone’s ATM bank account. They say he had eight re-coded Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards with him. He also has been charged over his alleged involvement in an ATM theft that took place in Milton.

Venkov, 40, is charged with aiding and abetting the identity fraud scam and also of using counterfeit bank account access codes. Police says that when they arrested Venkov he had $99,100 in cash in his car. Vladev, 36, was detained at Logan International Airport as he was attempting to leave for Germany. He pleaded not guilty to identify fraud and larceny charges.

Police found gadgets and computer equipment in a Weymouth storage unit that they believe belong to Hristov and his alleged cohorts. Authorities say there are other skimming operations in Weymouth, Roslindale, Braintree, Dorchester, and Milton.

Do not give up hope if you have been arrested for allegedly committing a Massachusetts crime. You may have been wrongly charged. There may be evidence that can prove you are not guilty. There may be criminal charges filed against you that can be reduced or dropped. Police may have gone about obtaining the evidence they have in the wrong way and that evidence may now be inadmissible. Your civil rights may have been violated during your arrest or detention.

Police break ATM skimming ring in Greater Boston, Wicked Local, January 29, 2010
Two more arrested in ATM theft case, Boston.com, January 29, 2010

Related Web Resources:
ATM fraud, a.k.a. skimming, is on the rise, ConsumerReports, January 14, 2010
Identity theft, FTC Continue reading

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You know, sometimes a criminal defense attorney cannot help but get mad. For example, when a client whom the attorney is absolutely sure is innocent of charges is found guilty of them anyway, I get angry. Or cases wherein one of the many unfairness’s that are built into the criminal justice system raise their ugly heads, my passion is inflamed. Or, more recently, in a Massachusetts superior court, where an absolutely heart-wrenching drama is being played out and suddenly the prosecution and other untrained-yet-self-ordained “experts” announce with “authority” their expectations of human behavior to the detriment of fairness…it drives me nuts.

A four-year-old girl is dead. Her mother, Carolyn R. (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is on trial for her homicide. Dad, also charged with murder, awaits his turn next.

The purpose of an opening statement in a trial is to give the jury a roadmap of the evidence the lawyer contends it will see during the trial. In this case, the prosecuting attorney gave his opening statement, listing the evidence he expects he will show, thus proving the Defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Thereafter, the school nurse testified to begin the onslaught of critical evidence.

One of the first things described by both the prosecutor and the nurse? Well, apparently, hours after her daughter died, the Defendant and her husband appeared at the child’s preschool with a “flat” demeanor, asking to pick up her daughter’s things as well as a copy of her class photograph.
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In Boston on Thursday, Massachusetts Dr. Scott Reuben was charged with one count of health care fraud. Reuben used to serve as the chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center. Reuben has agreed to plead guilty and pay $420,000 in restitution.

According to federal court records, the Longmeadow physician falsified medical research. He is accused of falsifying findings he presented in at least 21 published studies. For example, the charge against him claims that Reuben actually never tested anyone (he told them he had tested 200 people) when he presented findings to Pfizer about the use of Celebrex in multimodal therapy. The pharmaceutical company had given him a $74,000 research grant.

Reuben faces up to 10-years in prison. However, because of the plea agreement he will likely receive a significantly lighter penalty.

Health Care Fraud
Healthcare fraud is a white collar crime. A person charged with Massachusetts health care fraud is usually a medical professional accused of profiting illegally by submitting allegedly dishonest medical claims. These are serious allegations and our Boston white collar crime law firm has seen cases where someone is wrongly charged with health care fraud because investigators misinterpreted the information and falsely accused someone of a crime.

Allegations against a medical professional charged with health care fraud can include:

• Obtaining unnecessary prescriptions and selling them for profit • Billing for medical services never provided • Filing more than one claim for the same service
• Changing service descriptions, provider names, member names, and dates on claims • Billing for a service that isn’t covered as if it were covered • Changing medical records • Incorrectly reporting a medical procedure or a diagnosis to obtain a larger payment • Using staff members that aren’t licensed • Waiving co-payments • Prescribing treatments that are not necessary
Dr. Scott Reuben, former chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, pleads guilty to health-care fraud, Masslive.com, January 14, 2010
Doc accused of healthcare fraud, TopNews, January 16, 2010

Related Web Resources:
Health Care Fraud, Cornell.edu
White Collar Crimes, Justia Continue reading

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For those of you who still hold fast to the fantasy that law enforcement never lies, prepare for a shock. Of course, this case does not feature law enforcement lying to convict a defendant. Instead, it is a Massachusetts law enforcement official lying to federal law enforcement who needs a criminal defense attorney.

Arlindo R., a 37-year-old former Stoughton police detective, (hereinafter, the “Defendant), admitted in federal court yesterday that he lied to FBI agents during an ongoing investigation into corruption in the police department and had promised to help authorities in their probe.

The Defendant pleaded guilty in US District Court in Boston to one count of making false statements last July 13. Agents had asked whether he knew of Stoughton police officers receiving stolen gift cards and other items from an informant secretly cooperating with the FBI. According to the government, the Defendant had been among the recipients.
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Richard and Mayumi Heene received their sentences for their roles in the balloon hoax involving their six-year-old son Falcon. Both of them pleaded guilty last month to criminal charges. Mayumi pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of knowingly filing a false report with emergency services and Richard pleaded guilty to a felony charge of knowingly and falsely attempting to influence a public servant.

The Heenes captured the media spotlight last October after they contacted 911 to report that they thought Falcon may have flown off in a flying saucer-like balloon that Richard had constructed. TV cameras followed rescuers as they chased after the balloon in an attempt to bring him back to safety. The 6-year-old was later found in the family garage. Questions about whether the incident was a hoax came up when Falcon replied during a CNN interview that the escapade was done for a “show.” Mayumi later admitted that the balloon boy story was a hoax.

At his sentencing, Richard apologized for the incident. The judge abided by a plea agreement, sentencing him to 90 days in jail starting January 11, four years probation, and 100 hours of community services during those years. Heene is allowed to serve the last 60 days in a work release program but has to sleep in jail at night.

Mayumi is sentenced to 20 days in jail (not as much time as what prosecutors sought), four years probation, and 120 hours of community service. Mayumi’s sentence begins after her husband’s sentence is over so that one of them can remain with the kids. She can also serve her time on weekends.

Mayumi and Richard are ordered to pay restitution.

‘Balloon boy’ parents plead guilty, MSNBC, November 13, 2009
Balloon Boy Parents Richard Heene, Mayumi Heene Get Jail Time, Probation, ABC, December 23, 2009
‘Balloon boy’ parents plead guilty, CNN, November 13, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Timeline Of Balloon Boy Events, ABC 7, October 16, 2009
General Laws of Massachusetts
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