Nov. 18 (UPI) — Two more defendants have been sentenced for their roles in a $16 million California hospice scam that billed Medicare for medical services that never were provided.
The U.S. District Court for Central California on Monday sentenced Juan Carlos Esparza, 33, of Valley Village, to 57 months in prison and ordered him to pay $1.83 million in restitution, according to the Justice Department.
The court on Monday also sentenced Susanna Harutyunyan, 39, of Winnetka, to 15 months in prison and to pay $2.82 million in restitution
Their sentences are in addition to that of Karpis Srapyan, 35, of Winnetka, who was sentenced to 57 months in prison and to pay $3.2 million in restitution in October.
Mihran Panosyan, 47, of Winnetka, in September also was sentenced to 57 months and was ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution.
The court in May also sentenced Petro Fichidzhyan, 44, of Granada Hills, to 12 years in prison and ordered him to pay $17.13 million in restitution.
Their scheme ran from July 2019 until January 2023 as the five defendants “operated four sham hospices” that billed Medicare for unnecessary medical procedures that never were provided, according to the DOJ.
Esparza owned the House of Angels Hospice and, with the help of Fichidzhyan and Srapyan, “concealed the scheme by using foreign nationals’ names and personally identifiable information to act as straw owners for the hospices and to open bank accounts, submit information to Medicare and to sign property leases,” the DOJ said Tuesday in a news release.
The defendants also obtained cell phones in the names of foreign nationals and controlled them to further the scheme that netted $16 in payments from Medicare.
The DOJ said they conspired with Harutyunyan, Panosyan and others to launder the proceeds by maintaining fraudulent identification documents, bank documents, checkbooks, credit cards, debit cards and other records associated with the sham hospices in the names of the “purported foreign workers.”
After defrauding Medicare, the defendants transferred the money among different accounts and assets, including bank accounts in the names of shell companies, to launder the proceeds and conceal the scheme, according to the DOJ.
Esparza in July pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud and transactional money laundering.
That same month, Harutyunyan also pleaded guilty to transactional money laundering, and Srapyan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and transactional money laundering.
Panosyan in June pleaded guilty to concealment money laundering, and Fichidzhyan in February pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud, aggravated identity theft and concealment money laundering.
The federal court in May also ordered forfeiture of two homes the defendants bought with the fraudulent proceeds, and the federal government seized $2.92 million from associated bank accounts.