Owner of Brooklyn Medical Clinics Sentenced for Her Role in $55 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/owner-brooklyn-medical-clinics-sentenced-seven-years-imprisonment-her-role-55-million

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Eastern District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 15, 2017

Owner of Brooklyn Medical Clinics Sentenced to Seven Years’ Imprisonment for Her Role in $55 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme

Defendant Laundered Millions of Dollars Through Sham Companies to Pay Illegal Kickbacks to Patients

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – The owner of two medical clinics in Brooklyn, New York, was sentenced today to seven years in prison for her role in a $55 million health care fraud scheme.
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Valentina Kovalienko, 47, the owner of Prime Care on the Bay LLC and Bensonhurst Mega Medical Care P.C., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf of the Eastern District of New York, who also ordered Kovalienko to pay $29,336,497.27 in restitution and to forfeit $29,336,497.27. Kovalienko pleaded guilty in October 2015 to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

As part of her guilty plea, Kovalienko acknowledged that her co-conspirators paid cash kickbacks to patients to induce them to attend her two clinics. Kovalienko also admitted that she submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid for services that were induced by prohibited kickback payments to patients or that were unlawfully rendered by unlicensed staff. Kovalienko also wrote checks from the clinics’ bank accounts to third-party companies, which purported to provide services to the clinics, but which in fact were not providing services, and the payments were instead used to generate the cash needed to pay the illegal kickbacks to patients, she admitted.
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Twenty other individuals have pleaded guilty in connection with this case, including the former medical directors of Prime Care on the Bay LLC and Bensonhurst Mega Medical Care P.C., six physical and occupational therapists, three ambulette drivers, the owner of several of the sham companies used to launder the money and a former patient who received illegal kickbacks.
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