Sanford Health to Pay $20.25 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations Regarding Kickbacks and Unnecessary Spinal Surgeries

The Department of Justice announced today that hospital entities Sanford Health, Sanford Medical Center, and Sanford Clinic (collectively, Sanford), of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, have agreed to pay $20.25 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that they knowingly submitted false claims to federal healthcare programs resulting from violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute and medically unnecessary spinal surgeries.  The Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving remuneration to induce referrals of items or services covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and other federally-funded programs.

The settlement resolves allegations originally brought in a lawsuit filed by Drs. Carl Dustin Bechtold and Bryan Wellman, surgeons at Sanford, under the whistleblower, or qui tam, provision of the False Claims Act, which allows private parties to bring suit on behalf of the government and to share in any recovery.  The whistleblowers will receive $3.4 million of the settlement proceeds. read more »

Federal Court Orders Florida Company to Pay More Than $15 Million for Fraud, Illegal Precious Metals Transactions

On Monday, October 28, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered a default judgment against defendants Aviv Michael Hen of New York, and Omega Knight 2, LLC, as well as a consent order against Erez Hen of Florida, for fraud and illegal, off-exchange precious metals transactions and failing to register with the CFTC

In its motion for default judgment, the CFTC presented evidence that from March 2013 through June 2017, Omega Knight, including Aviv Hen, engaged in a scheme to defraud customers located throughout the United States in connection with precious metals transactions. According to the default order, the defendants made numerous false statements to induce customers to enter into leveraged and fully-paid precious metals transactions, and Omega Knight received a minimum of $5.5 million from at least 90 customers in connection with these transactions. read more »

Justice Department issues grand jury subpoenas in J&J opioid probe: filing

Johnson & Johnson received grand jury subpoenas in August from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York related to its opioid medication policies, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday.

J&J said the subpoenas were related to anti-diversion policies and procedures and the distribution of its opioid medications developed by its Janssen pharmaceuticals unit.

The company said in the filing it believes the investigation relates to monitoring and reporting

 reporting programs by manufacturers and distributors of opioids under the Controlled Substances Act. read more »