A physician’s assistant who defrauded Medicare by signing phony prescriptions for medical equipment while working at two Los Angeles-area medical clinics was sentenced Monday to three years in prison.
Erasmus Kotey, 78, of Montebello, was also ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution to the Medicare program.
Kotey pleaded guilty in March before U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow to one count each of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
Kotey worked at medical clinics at 866 N. Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles and 943 S. Atlantic Blvd. in Monterey Park.
From about November 2007 through December 2008, Kotey signed prescriptions and other medical documents for medically unnecessary diagnostic tests, power wheelchairs and other durable medical equipment, prosecutors said. Co-conspirators then sold the prescriptions, knowing that they were fraudulent, court documents show.
Based on those bogus prescriptions, testing facilities and medical supply companies then submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, according to prosecutors.
Phony prescriptions from Kotey were responsible for about $7 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, and Medicare paid about $3.5 million on those claims, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The scheme at the North Vermont Avenue clinic also involved Susanna Artsruni, a North Hollywood woman who previously admitted she caused $25 million in fraudulent claims to be submitted to Medicare, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
—City News Service