Whistleblower accuses North Dakota clinic of kickback schemes

A North Dakota clinic is accused of participating in kickback schemes that have cost the federal government millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims.

A whistleblower complaint brought against Bismarck's Mid Dakota Clinic and its building partnership alleges that doctors referred patients to the clinic's surgical center, allowing them to increase their pay in the form of profits from the center. The document says Mid Dakota Clinic had a similar kickback arrangement with another physician group in Bismarck.

The federal anti-kickback law is meant to prevent abuses that occur when a person profits from a patient referral. That often includes ordering unnecessary procedures. read more »

Federal Court Orders Managed Fund and CEO to Pay More Than $17.2 Million in a Commodities Fraud Scheme

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced a default judgment was entered on October 3rd against defendants Fabio Bretas de Freitas, of Miami, Florida, and Phy Capital Investments LLC, a registered commodity pool operator and commodity trading advisor, for fraud and misappropriation of client funds.

The judgment orders the defendants to pay a civil monetary penalty of $12,608,982, to pay $4,625,166 in restitution and prejudgment interest to Phy Capital clients, to disgorge $5,752,042 in ill-gotten gains, and permanently bans the defendants from trading in CFTC-regulated markets.  The Honorable Jesse M. Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered the judgment. read more »

Robert Shapiro gets 25 years in prison for massive Ponzi scheme

Developer and former CEO of Woodbridge Group of Companies defrauded more than 7K investors

When developer Robert Shapiro pleaded guilty in August to leading a $1.3 billion real estate Ponzi scheme, he faced up to 25 years in prison.

On Tuesday, a federal court judge sentenced Shapiro to that maximum, closing the criminal chapter on what has been a two-year-long saga surrounding the massive fraud perpetrated by Shapiro’s now-defunct Sherman Oaks-based investment firm, Woodbridge Group of Companies.

In all, more than 7,000 property investors were defrauded over five years until Woodbridge went under in late 2017 amid a wide-reaching federal investigation into the scheme, the government said in a release announcing the sentencing. read more »