The former owner/operator and two managers of a Southland ambulance company will be sentenced in November following their convictions on health care fraud charges stemming from a $2.4 million Medicare scam.
Concluding a 10-day trial before U.S. District Judge S. James Otero, a federal jury Tuesday found Yaroslav “Steven” Proshak, Emilia Zverev and Sharetta Michelle Wallace each guilty of conspiracy and health care fraud.
Proshak, 47, of Valley Village, owned and operated ProMed Medical Transportation, a now-defunct Gardena ambulance transportation company that provided non-emergency ambulance transportation services to Medicare beneficiaries, many of whom were dialysis patients.
Zverev, 58, of Van Nuys, was ProMed’s billing manager, and Wallace, 37, of Inglewood, supervised ProMed’s emergency medical technicians.
The evidence at trial demonstrated that, between May 2008 and October 2010, the defendants conspired to bill Medicare for ambulance transportation services for individuals they knew did not need such services.
In addition, the defendants instructed EMTs who worked at ProMed to conceal the true medical conditions of patients they were transporting by altering requisite paperwork and creating fraudulent documents to justify the transportation services, according to federal prosecutors.
During the course of the conspiracy, ProMed submitted at least $2.4 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary transportation services. Medicare paid at least $1.2 million of those claims.
As a result of the guilty verdicts, each defendant faces up to 60 years in federal prison. Otero is scheduled to sentence Proshak on Nov. 24, while Zverev and Wallace are expected to be sentenced on Nov. 30.
— Wire reports