AEL Negotiates Misdemeanor Plea for Indicted Doctor; Government Agrees to Dismiss Healthcare Fraud Charges; Court Reinstates Doctor’s Billing Privileges

May 18, 2021 - David M. Eskew

AEL once again navigated a doctor client out of a federal indicted healthcare fraud case, this time in the Eastern District of New York (EDNY). A pain management doctor with practice locations in Manhattan and Queens pled guilty on Thursday, May 6, 2021, to a misdemeanor superseding information charging him with receiving, without knowledge or intent to defraud, a misbranded drug from a foreign source in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 331(c) and 333(a)(1). In the plea agreement, the Government agreed to dismiss at the time of sentencing an indictment charging the doctor with a multimillion dollar healthcare fraud scheme. The misdemeanor plea resolves all of the conduct charged in the previously-filed criminal complaint, indictment and superseding information. As part of the plea, the Government agreed and the Court order that the bail condition prohibiting the doctor from billing Medicare and Medicaid be lifted, a restriction that had been in place since the outset of the case.

This incredible resolution for the client comes after intensive negotiations and multiple presentations by AEL to the EDNY U.S. Attorney’s Office in the weeks leading up to trial regarding exculpatory evidence that had been uncovered by AEL attorneys in the course of their internal investigation. The exculpatory evidence, of which the Government had previously been unaware, exonerated the defendant of the primary allegations in the indictment.  

This is the second time in the past three months that AEL has fought back charges in a federal indicted case on behalf of doctor clients. In March 2021, AEL announced that it had successfully negotiated a global resolution of a parallel criminal and civil cases pending in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) against a Manhattan-based vascular surgeon, which charges sprung from a qui tam complaint filed against the doctor. In that case, the Government agreed to a civil-only resolution, resolving its criminal indictment with a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA).

AEL is a premier litigation boutique that specializes in parallel criminal and civil healthcare cases on behalf of individuals and institutional clients in the SDNY, EDNY and DNJ. AEL Partners Kenneth M. Abell and David M. Eskew, both former federal prosecutors and healthcare Chiefs, handled the case.