The individuals charged include doctors, nurses, paramedics, physician’s assistants, therapists, social workers, other hospital personnel, and health care company owners. Most of the charges involve alleged schemes to receive payment for medically unnecessary or unprovided medical treatments including mental health services, occupational and physical therapy, psychotherapy. Other alleged schemes involve fraudulent billing for durable medical goods or ambulance services. In many cases, the DOJ claims that individuals used patient recruiters to find and bribe Medicare recipients to provide their beneficiary information so that medical providers could bill the government under their names for unnecessary services. Recruiters and beneficiaries were then allegedly paid illegal kickbacks for participating in the scheme. These kinds of violations can result in various types of federal fraud and money laundering charges.

The government uses data analysis as a major tool for uncovering health care fraud. One major problem with this method is that it detects suspected fraud based on irregular patterns of claims, which is not in itself fraudulent. The government must go several steps further to prove actual fraud, and cannot rely simply on a pattern of billing that looks abnormal. Among other elements of fraud, federal prosecutors must always prove that an individual had the intent to defraud, which requires them to show that there was no legitimate medical need for the services provided, and that the billing can only have been a product of criminal intent.

If you have been charged with a serious federal criminal offense, it is essential to move quickly and retain experienced federal defense counsel who can protect your rights against the power of the federal government. Our federal criminal attorneys have successfully defended numerous medical professionals in federal court charged with healthcare fraud and other serious criminal allegations. Recently, we achieved a highly favorable outcome for a doctor falsely accused of operating a pill mill, and last year we achieved thirty-three “not guilty” verdicts for a North Georgia physician accused of distributing signed blank prescriptions.

According to the government, Corning’s false claims stem from contracts between Corning Life Sciences and the federal government entered into through the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedule Program. The MAS allows companies that do business with federal agencies to have a single primary contract that qualifies it to do business across the federal government. Qualification through MAS signals to all federal agencies that the contractor is qualified to do business and offers its products or services at appropriate rates. In order to participate in the program, companies have to disclose their pricing policies to the government, to ensure that taxpayers are paying the same prices as private customers on the open market. This allows both the government and contracting companies to save on the large administrative costs that would be required if companies dealt separately with individual agencies of the federal government.

Corning, a leading international producer of glassware based in New York, allegedly misrepresented its prices to the GSA and thus caused federal agencies—including the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute and the Food and Drug Administration—to pay more than the fair market price for the company’s products. In the lawsuit he filed in 2010, former Corning account manager Kevin Jones claimed that the company did not inform the GSA about price reductions it was offering to its commercial clients. Jones also claimed that Corning was paying illegal kickbacks to federal employees who placed large orders on behalf of the government. The alleged kickbacks consisted of various types of gift cards of up to $100 as well as Corningware kitchen items.

Our experienced whistleblower attorneys are available to help if you believe you have evidence of fraud or false claims against the federal government. The False Claims Act, which allows individuals to sue companies that defraud the federal government, provides whistleblower awards of up to 30% of any amount ultimately recovered. The exact amount of the award is determined according to the quality and quantity of information the whistleblower provides, and whether or not the federal government ultimately took over the litigation.

The information the government used to gain authorization for its current investigation comes primarily from the IRS Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, which permits individuals who have offshore holdings to come forward, pay off their tax deficiencies, pay hefty civil fines, and avoid the possibility of future criminal prosecution and jail time. Apparently, a number of taxpayers who took advantage of the program admitted to having funds in the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce FirstCaribbean International Bank, based in Barbados and with branches throughout the Caribbean. Information gathered from 120 voluntary disclosers confirmed to the government that significant numbers of U.S. taxpayers were using FirstCaribbean International Bank to illegally avoid paying federal taxes.

While FirstCaribbean is based in Barbados, because it engages in numerous transactions in U.S. dollars, the bank itself has a “correspondent account” in a U.S.-based bank, in this case Wells Fargo N.A. Thus, while FirstCaribbean is outside the jurisdiction of the federal government, the DOJ could nonetheless issue the John Doe summons on Wells Fargo to obtain deposit and wire transfer records for FirstCaribbean’s U.S. taxpayer accounts, even though the identities of those taxpayers are not yet known. After obtaining that information from Wells Fargo, the IRS and DOJ will be able to analyze those financial records to determine whether FirstCaribbean account holders have violated U.S. tax laws.

There are many valid reasons that a taxpayer might have holdings in a foreign account, such as making accessing funds easier while spending time abroad or simplifying foreign business transactions. While keeping money abroad is perfectly legal, U.S. law does require payment of taxes on all income earned worldwide, and foreign bank accounts may not be used to hide income from federal authorities. Additionally, each year taxpayers must report any foreign bank accounts that have held over $10,000 at any time in the previous year. Criminal penalties for attempted tax evasion include up to five years imprisonment, a criminal fine of up to $100,000, in addition to enhancement as required under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Failure to supply the IRS with required information—such as offshore account holdings over $10,000—can be punished with up to a year imprisonment and a $25,000 fine. In such cases, no actual tax deficiency or evasion is necessary; willful failure to provide the required information is the crime, not underpayment.

Tax law is extremely complex and one of the few areas of criminal law where ignorance of the law may actually be a defense in some cases. Where a taxpayer has relied in good faith on the advice of an accountant or attorney when opening an offshore account, a taxpayer may potentially have a viable defense to a charge of attempted tax evasion. Likewise, most tax crimes require the prosecution to prove that a taxpayer willfully broke the law, and in many cases evidence of willfulness maybe hard for the government to prove. Willfulness is a very fact-specific determination that often requires going through mountains of records and other evidence in a case.

If you are under investigation or charged with criminal tax violations, our experienced federal defense attorneys may be able to help. Our firm has an extensive record of success in defending tax and other white collars crimes in federal courts throughout the U.S. Acting early and mounting an aggressive defense is the best way to protect your rights and minimize the serious risks that a federal prosecution can pose.

Bendelladj, an Algerian citizen, was extradited from Thailand for the alleged offenses.  The U.S Attorney’s Office claims that Bendelladj rented a server from an Atlanta internet company to control computers.

Under federal law, fraud offenses carry stiff penalties.  An individual convicted of wire fraud, for example, faces twenty years in prison.  If the fraud involved a financial institution, the accused faces a possible thirty year prison sentence and $1,000,000 fine.

Computer related fraud cases like this are new, but growing area in federal criminal law enforcement. In any fraud case, the most important issue is usually proving knowledge and intent. To convict a person of fraud, the government must show that the individual participated in the scheme with knowledge of the fraud.  In many cases, a good federal defense attorney will be able to show that an individual was unaware of the ongoing fraud or honestly believe that his or her actions were legitimate and lawful.

On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta agreed to drop all felony charges against Dr. Mintlow in exchange for a misdemeanor plea to a single count of misbranding a prescription drug.  As a result, Dr. Mintlow will be able to put this unfortunate case behind him and continue his practice of medicine.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office had originally charged Dr. Mintlow with the unlawful distribution of Oxycodone and conspiracy to unlawfully distribute Oxycodone – both felony offenses carrying heavy sentences.  In essence, the government alleged that Dr. Mintlow was prescribing pain medication to patients without a legitimate medical purpose and accused Dr. Mintlow of putting profit before his patients’ health.

In response to the government’s allegations, our firm retained one of the nation’s leading experts on pain management as well as a local pain physician to review the medical files of Dr. Mintlow’s patients.  The patient files included MRI reports, patient questionnaires, patient charts, and drug tests.  The results were clear: Dr. Mintlow was engaged in the legitimate practice of medicine.  Our firm also found numerous patients who were more than willing to testify that Dr. Mintlow was an excellent doctor who cared deeply about their health and quality of life.

It is an unfortunate circumstance that pain physicians are no longer able to treat patients as they see fit.  The arrests of many pain physicians in Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee has had a chilling effect on the practice causing many pain patients to go without adequate treatment.  The surge in arrests has also blemished the reputations of many fine doctors like Dr. Mintlow who were lawfully and legitimately treating patients.  We were happy to help obtain a dismissal of all felony counts against Dr. Mintlow.  We have no doubt that the residents of Georgia will be well served by his continued practice of medicine in the years to come.

Two factors identified in the article—the recent tendency for companies to quickly publicly disclose FCPA investigations and the desire of the Department of Justice to close out old investigations that have gone nowhere—may have contributed to the lower number of new FCPA investigations. In contrast, prosecutions of individuals for FCPA violations have been on the upswing. In the first three months of the year, eight individuals were sentenced for FCPA violations in four different cases.

Yet, despite the high number of sentences imposed, the sentences those individuals received no additional prison time beyond that already served. The article’s authors point out that prosecutors have not had the easiest time getting the FCPA convictions and sentences they would like. While this can hardly be taken as a sign that an FCPA prosecution is not a serious charge, it does suggest that skilled defense counsel has significant strategic opportunities in FCPA cases to get obtain highly favorable results for their clients. The authors also note recent cases from New York that show significant uncertainty about the types of proof federal prosecutors must produce to provide federal courts with jurisdiction to hear FCPA cases. Such determinations are very fact intensive and it is thus essential that defense counsel have the resources to fully evaluate the facts and determine how strong the government’s case actually is.

When an individual faces prosecution under the criminal provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, defense counsel has a number of avenues to challenge the government’s case. In the recent New York cases, a number of issues were hotly disputed. The most fundamental issue in any prosecution, personal jurisdiction, determines whether a court even has the power to hear the case. Where a defendant is a foreign national and his or her acts occurred outside the U.S., personal jurisdiction can become a real issue and potentially prevent prosecution altogether.

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions typically involve mountains of complex evidence and effective defense of these cases requires extensive experience in federal criminal defense, especially white-collar and international criminal matters. For nearly twenty years, our federal defense attorneys have had extraordinary success for clients accused of crimes in federal courts across the U.S. If you are facing investigation or criminal charges for an alleged FCPA violation, we are ready to use our experience and expertise to protect your rights and help you obtain the best possible outcome.

The charges in the case stem from events alleged to have occurred from October through December of 2010 at the prison, which is in Oglethorpe, Georgia. The government claims that on four separate dates, prisoners struck MSP officers and that the seven correctional officers—Kerry Bolden, Tyler Griffin, Christopher Hall, Ronald Lach Jr., Delton Rushin, Kadarius Thomas, and Derrick Wimbush, all members of the Correctional Emergency Response Team—then conspired to assault, threaten, and intimidate those prisoners, in violation of the Eight Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Specifically, the officers allegedly worked together to assault the prisoners, or failed to stop other officers’ assaults on the prisoners.

Obstruction of justice charges have also been brought against the seven former CERT officers, in addition to the MSP Deputy Warden James Hinton. The government alleges that the eight wrote or provided false reports of the incidents and then later provided false information to government investigators investigating the allegations.

Our federal criminal defense attorneys have extensive experience representing law enforcement officers charged with crimes, including charges of excessive force and civil rights violations. In fact, our firm won a federal criminal trial for a deputy charged with civil rights violations and obstruction in Middle Georgia a few years ago. We have also represented current and former law enforcement officials in other criminal matters in federal courts across Georgia.

According to the indictment, Bartrice Alan King, a/k/a/ “Luke” and “Cool,” of Spring Texas, opened an illegal internet sports gambling website in 2002 that was based in San Jose, Costa Rica, and which was moved in 2003 to Panama City, Panama and renamed “Legendz Sports.” Although the physical operations were located in other countries, the government claims that Legendz target bettors in the United States by using both online betting as well as traditional bookmakers located throughout the U.S. King’s wife, Serena Monique King, is also charged in the conspiracy for her role as vice president of Data Support Services and operator of Texas-based Starting 5, LLC, companies which the government claims were involved in the scheme.

The dozens of other individual and corporate defendants charged in the gambling conspiracy include individuals acting as bookmakers, agents, runners, and shell companies that were used to keep Legendz running and the profits paid out to the participants unconnected to the illegal gambling enterprise. Many were involved in distributing “payouts” to bettors by taking funds from Legendz and sending them through “payment processor” companies that would then remit checks to the bettors.

By using telephone and online gambling services based in Panama City, Legendz allegedly took bets from U.S. bettors by one of two methods: “Post-Up” betting where a bettor first funded an account with Legendz and was limited to the funds in that account, and “Credit” betting where the better did not have to pay in advance, and instead met face-to-face with agents and bookies in the U.S. By running the websites and phone betting “twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year,” the government claims that Legendz was able to take millions of illegal bets of over $1 billion since 2003.

The government also seeks forfeitures large amounts of property allegedly involved in the conspiracy—worth up to the $1 billion or more in bets it claims the company solicited. The property the government wants to keep for itself include “real estate, bank accounts, brokerage and investment accounts, certificates of deposit, individual retirement accounts, domain names, a Sabreliner aircraft, a gas lease and vehicles.”

Potential sentences for the charged crimes range from 5 years for operating an illegal gambling business to up to 20 years for racketeering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Where multiple counts are charged, convictions may potentially result in back-to-back sentences. For each member of the conspiracy convicted, a judge will have to determine the amounts of money that can be attributed to that defendant, which will help the judge determine an appropriate sentence under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

Our federal defense attorneys have represented numerous clients in criminal gambling investigations and federal racketeering cases. We have had outstanding results in all types of state and federal white-collar criminal cases, including numerous dismissals, not guilty verdicts, and probation-only sentences. If you are under investigation for or charged with federal gambling or other white-collar offenses, our experienced attorneys are available to help.

According to the government, BizJet International Sales and Support Inc., a subsidiary of Lufthansa Technik AG, provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services for corporate aviation clients. From 2004 through 2010, at least four executives of the company conspired to obtain MRO service contracts from foreign government customers, including the Mexican Federal Police, the Mexican President’s Fleet, the Mexican state of Sinaloa, the Panama Aviation Authority, and the Brazilian state of Roraima, by paying bribes to foreign governmental officials. Over the course of the conspiracy, the four executives allegedly arranged for hundreds of thousands of dollars to be paid to military officials in Mexico, Panama, and Brazil. In March of 2012, BizJet entered into a deferred prosecution agreement under which it agreed to pay an $11.8 million penalty.

The four BizJet executives now under indictment are former president and chief executive officer Bernd Kowalewski, former sales manager Jald Jensen, former vice president of sales and marketing Peter DuBois, and former vice president of finance Neal Uhl. DuBois and Uhl entered guilty pleas in January admitting their roles in the conspiracy and their pleas were unsealed on Friday along with the indictments. For their cooperation in the government’s investigation, DuBois and Uhl received reductions in their sentencing guidelines ranges, with DuBois’ range lowered from 108 to 120 months imprisonment to only probation and eight months home detention, and Uhl’s range lowered from 60 months imprisonment to only probation and an similar period of home detention.

Kowalewski and Jensen are not yet in U.S. custody and are believed to remain abroad. Kowalewski and Jensen face charges of money laundering in addition to FCPA and conspiracy charges. The money laundering charges relate to allegations that the two executives funneled bribes to the foreign officials through a shell company that purported to provide aircraft maintenance brokerage services, but which actually existed only to launder the bribes paid to the foreign officials. If found guilty of FCPA violations, Kowalewski and Jensen face a maximum of sentence five years imprisonment and hundred of thousands of dollars in fines on each count. If convicted on money laundering conspiracy charges, they could face up to 10 or 20 years imprisonment and even larger criminal fines.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act forbids U.S. companies and their employees from engaging in federal government corruption and bribery of foreign officials. Additionally, it requires large U.S. companies doing business abroad to take active steps to ensure their employees do not violate the Act. Such steps include keeping detailed records and maintaining internal procedures and programs to prevent corruption. By complying with these requirements, companies can shield themselves from criminal liability even where their employees violate the law and are criminally prosecuted. Unfortunately, the leniency federal prosecutors show to companies that cooperate in investigations creates incentives for companies to help the government successfully prosecute their own employees.

Because potential sentences for FCPA violations—and other charges relating to public corruption such as mail or wire fraud, bribery of public officials, honest services fraud, racketeering, or money laundering—are very high, and because an employee’s own company will likely be willing to help the government, it is essential that anyone under investigation for public corruption violations immediately retain an experienced federal defense attorney. For twenty years, our federal defense attorneys have had great success in defending clients accused of a wide variety of federal public corruption offenses.

According to the government, Shahin Abdollahi of Elsinore, California, is a former owner of a number of Subway franchises in Southern California. Later, Abdollahi opened a new business, “POS Doctor,” that sold and installed point-of-sale funds transfer systems to businesses around the country, including several Subway franchises. These POS systems are essentially electronic cash registers that incorporate the entry of items purchased, totaling of bills, addition of taxes, and payment by cash, credit cards, debit cards, and gift cards.

The government claims that in 2011 Abdollahi, together with Jeffrey Thomas Wilkinson of Rialto, California, entered into a conspiracy to hack into at least 13 POS systems Abdollahi had installed at Subway restaurants. After gaining access to the systems, the two allegedly were able to add cash value to empty Subway gift cards they had already obtained. After adding at least $40,000 to the cards, the two men allegedly both personally used the cards at Subway restaurants, and Wilkinson allegedly sold the cards on eBay and Craigslist.

Both Abdollahi and Wilkinson are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and wire fraud, and one substantive count of wire fraud.

If convicted, the conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and wire fraud count will carry a maximum sentence of 5 years imprisonment, but the substantive count of wire fraud could result in a sentence of up to 20 years. The actual sentences would likely be substantially lower than 20 years, however, especially if the two men have no criminal records. The judge would look to the recommended sentence under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, paying close attention to the total cash value of the fraud.

Computer-related crimes are estimated to cost the U.S. well over $100 billion per year. Because of the large economic cost of computer crimes, federal prosecutors have made online crimes an increasingly high priority and have brought serious criminal charges in a number of recent high-profile cases. Although computer crimes are a serious problem, many argue that the federal government has gone too far in creating overly broad criminal laws relating to computer and internet use, creating incredibly harsh penalties for even minor violations. Because the stakes are so high in these cases, it is essential to retain an experienced federal criminal defense attorney the moment that you are arrested, charged, or learn that you are under investigation for a federal computer crime. For twenty years, our federal criminal defense attorneys have successfully represented clients charged with federal white-collar crimes, many involving allegations of online crimes.