An attorney on Tuesday confirmed the death of a Los Angeles-area doctor who was scheduled to be sentenced this week for his part in an $11 million Medicare fraud scheme.
Dr. Juan Tomas Van Putten, 68, died Oct. 15, and a paid obituary appeared Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times. No cause of death was given, but he had been suffering from kidney problems, court papers show.
Van Putten pleaded guilty in November 2012 to conspiring to defraud Medicare, admitting that he accepted payments in exchange for writing medically unnecessary prescriptions for power wheelchairs and other equipment.
The charge carries a federal prison term of up to 10 years. However, prosecutors had recommended that he serve three years in federal prison based on the “substantial assistance” he provided in the prosecution of his co- defendants, according to court papers.
A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
Van Putten admitted to obtaining patients for his Carson medical clinic, Greater South Bay Medical Group, from street-level patient recruiters or “marketers” who illegally solicited patients with Medicare benefits for expensive, highly-specialized power wheelchairs and other equipment that the patients did not need.
Some of the marketers worked for the operators of fraudulent medical supply companies, including co-defendant Charles Agbu, a church pastor who operated Bonfee Medical Supplies in Carson, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Van Putten and his co-defendants submitted about $11 million in false claims to Medicare and received about $5 million on those claims, according to court papers.
Agbu was sentenced last year to almost seven years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $5.7 million in restitution.
— City News Service