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We are attorneys that investigate False Claims Act cases nationwide, including in the states of Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and elsewhere for Medicare fraud, tax fraud, contractor fraud and more against a range of employers including healthcare providers, medical device companies, defense contractors, and pharmaceutical companies. We stand ready to provide a free case evaluation to you; please call us today.

False Claims Act Lawyer Discusses Texas Fraud

As attorneys who represent persons that want to blow the whistle on governmental fraud, I thought it would be useful to provide you with this information on a mission trio convicted of healthcare fraud in a probe by state and federal officials in Texas.

As attorneys that represent individuals who want to reveal fraud against the Government, I wanted to provide notice of a recent whistle blower suit in an area of law that is not necessarily as common as some might perceive.  In Providence, Rhode Island, a recently unsealed whistle blower lawsuit claims a former civilian Navy employee from Virginia and a now defunct Navy contractor engaged in bribery and kick-back scheme going back to at least 2004.  The lawsuit, which was first filed in a federal court in Georgia in 2006, predates by more than four years criminal charges brought by federal prosecutors in Rhode Island in 2011 that alleges similar schemes by some of the same people that cost the government almost $10 million dollars.  The lawsuit says that the allegations were reported in May 2006 to the Department of Defense and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.  Both the whistle blower suit and the criminal suit in Rhode Island centered on alleged wrongdoing by former civilian Navy employee Ralph Mariano and Anjan Dutta-Gupta, founder of the Navy contractor Advanced Solutions for Tomorrow, or ASFT which had offices in Georgia and Rhode Island (and is no longer in business).

The suits allege that Mariano, who worked for the Naval Under Seal Warfare Center, had power to add or refuse millions of dollars in payments to contractors and used that power to orchestrate a scheme in which he would approve payments to ASFT, which would then funnel some of the money back to him and others through shell corporations.  ASFT held $120 million dollars in Navy contracts when the charges were first brought in February 2011.  Mariano remained in his job until 2011.  He has pleaded not guilty in the criminal case.  Dutta-Gupta and two others have pleaded guilty in federal court in Rhode Island in the criminal case.  Dutta-Gupta admitted paying $8 million dollars in bribes over more than a decade.

The whistle blower suit was brought in May 2006 by Rekha and Karan Vasudeva, who say they were involved in setting up a Roswell, Georgia company that was used to issue fictitious invoices to ASFT and a company owned by Spencer.  The whistle blower suit makes a number of allegations against other people and companies, including about bid rigging and U.S. Army contracts.  To date, there is no decision on whether or not the United States has intervened or not in the suit that was filed in Georgia, and has since been re-filed in Rhode Island to include additional details based on the criminal case, including adding Spencer and Naval as defendants.

Many people in the sense of false claims do not consider fraud against the United States Government and its military divisions.  Nevertheless, this lawsuit shows that there can and is fraud that occurs against the United States Military.  In this particular case, it was an individual and a company that took advantage of the United States and attempted to reap almost $10 million dollars.  All it took was a couple alerting the United States of this fraud in order for the United States to take the action it needed to do to recover the monies that were stolen.

If you know of any fraud against the government, including but not limited to against cases involving fraud for setting up unlawful contracts, persons or entities preparing false invoices for services not performed, or any similar fraudulent activity, please contact us.

If you have any knowledge about a similar cause of action involving improper medical benefits offered to the public, improper kickbacks received by doctors or healthcare providers, or similar alleged false claims, please contact us.

THE SCOPE OF FRAUD

Amazingly, some estimates have suggested that approximately 10% of the entire annual United States budget is lost to companies or individuals who are defrauding the government. The United States Federal budget for 2010 was $3.456 billion, meaning around $345.6 million was wrongfully wasted on fraud.

The entities defrauding the government do so in a variety of ways: Medicare or Medicaid fraud whereby they bill the government for services which they never provided or overbill for services that were provided; SEC Trading; Tax Fraud; TARP Fraud; Military/Defense contract fraud; Pharmaceutical Manufacturing;contract fraud involving any number of large government spending programs; or other types public benefit fraud.

HELPING THE PUBLIC.

As a whistleblower attorney, we are interested in speaking with persons willing to make known the truth about company practices and are willing to file a qui tam or whistleblower action. One area in particular we are interested in discussing are lawsuits involving medical device companies where the company is alleged to have overcharged, engaged in kickback programs, and the like. We will nevertheless investigate claims in a variety of areas.

Workers and persons all across the country witness actions at their work that may be unlawful or even corrupt. Unfortunately, some employees and workers feel that they will be fired, terminated, harrassed or punished if they report an unlawful or corrupt action. These reporters, however, are protected by the law as a Whistleblower and can receive compensation because of the False Claims Act or the Medicaid False Claims Act. If you have reported actions that may be fraudulent, then you should talk to a Whistleblower or qui tam lawyer about your facts.

Whistleblowers help the government to get back billions of dollars each year with the help of the False Claims Act. In fact, fraudulent Medicaid claims are also caught by whistleblowers having the Medicaid False Claims Act on their side. If you report a false claim or fraudulent action to the government, then the government will give you, the whistleblower, a part of the money that gets recovered. This is because of qui tam requirements. Qui Tam means that a person files a lawsuit for the king and also for him or herself. The phrase is qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur, or, “he who sues for the king as well for himself.”

These requirements and lawsuits were made popular during the Civil War when many people were getting away with fraudulent actions against the government. In 1986, the False Claims Act was amended to raise the total compensation given to people who reported fraudulent actions, or whistleblowers. If a whistleblower works with a lawyer then it may be possible for them to get three times the amount the government would get in damages and also get additional compensation for general fines.

TYPES OF CASES

The most common situations that could form the basis of a Qui Tam action include:

• Submitting a false or fraudulent record, bill or statement to the government in order to fraudulently obtain money such as reporting a medical service that was never performed for Medicare or Medicad;
• Conspiring with a third party to submit or present have a false or fraudulent claim to the government;
• Withholding property of the government with the intent to defraud or conceal the property from the government;
• Fraudulently buying property of the government from someone not authorized to sell that property; and
• Making a false statement to fraudulently avoid paying money to the government or to avoid delivering property to the government.

FOR HELP, PLEASE CONTACT US.

We help whistleblowers on a contingency basis, meaning there is no fee charged for our work unless there is a recovery. We also front any and all expenses. No matter where you are located — we will represent you. We will come to you, you will not have to come to us.

Attorneys in our firm and attorneys that we work with on Whistleblower, Qui Tam, False Claims Act cases have represented a host of persons making claims, for violations of federal tax law, Medicare law and more.

For more information, please contact our team of whitsleblower and qui tam attorneys today.

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