According to court documents, a New York health club owner pleaded guilty to health care fraud in federal court on April 20. The man is now facing a fine of up to $250,000, 10 years in federal prison and restitution.
Reportedly, the Springville health club owner submitted fraudulent claims to insurance companies between 2009 and 2012. The man claimed to have provided health programs to people who never attended any of them. The insurance companies then reimbursed the man for those programs.
Two of the people whom he claimed to have provided health programs had died before the claimed programs were allegedly performed. Others had undergone surgery and were forbidden by their doctors from exercising afterwards. Still other claims were made for people who were not in town at the time of the supposed health programs. The man will return for sentencing on Sept. 21. It is unclear whether the man had any charges dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea.
Fraud crimes are treated very seriously in both the state and federal court systems. People who are facing such charges may benefit by obtaining the assistance of a criminal defense attorney as soon as possible after they learn of an investigation. An attorney may be able to help secure a favorable plea on a client’s behalf to lesser offenses or to negotiate an arrangement involving an alternative sentence that would avoid incarceration. In some cases, such an agreement could provide for the payment of full restitution in exchange for a dismissal of the charges. These types offenses often involve voluminous written evidence, and an attorney might be better able to organize the information in order to spot issues with the prosecution’s case.
Source: Club Industry, “Health club owner pleads guilty to health care fraud,” Amy Fischbach, April 21, 2015.