Month: May 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

            CONCORD – Michael Cicciu, 42, of Manchester, pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to one count of possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute and one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, United States Attorney Jane E. Young announced today.

            According to court documents and statements made in court, on August 31, 2020, Manchester police detectives obtained a state search warrant for Cicciu’s residence based on surveillance and post-arrest statements from both buyers and suppliers of drugs. After executing the warrant, officers located a baggie of fentanyl and an apparent drug ledger.

            In 2018, Cicciu purchased a residential building in Manchester.  The premises were managed and controlled by Cicciu and made available for others to unlawfully store, distribute, and use controlled substances.   Specifically, on eight separate occasions between October 22, 2019 and November 20, 2020, Manchester police detectives executed search warrants at the residence that resulted in the arrests of people renting rooms from Cicciu who were distributing and using heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine and crack cocaine.  On one of these occasions, officers also located several assault-style weapons, a handgun, and brass knuckles.

            Cicciu is scheduled to be sentenced on August 25, 2022.  As part of his plea agreement, he has agreed to forfeit his interest in the property, which is located on East High Street in Manchester.

            “Drug trafficking endangers our community in many different ways,” said U.S. Attorney Young.  “Not only do drug traffickers sell deadly substances, but their unlawful activities damage the peace and security of our neighborhoods.  By allowing dangerous drug dealers to do business inside his building, this defendant jeopardized public safety and broke the law.  Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement partners, he has now been held responsible for his crimes.”

            This matter was investigated by the Manchester Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joachim H. Barth.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Rabuck assisted with the forfeiture portion of the case.

            This case is part of Operation Synthetic Opioid Surge (S.O.S.).  In July of 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of S.O.S., which is being implemented in the District of New Hampshire and nine other federal districts.  The goal of S.O.S. is to combat the large number of overdoses and deaths associated with fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.   In New Hampshire, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is focusing its efforts on prosecuting synthetic opioid trafficking cases arising in Hillsborough County, which includes Manchester and Nashua. 

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

ABINGDON, Va. – A Las Vegas, Nevada-based laboratory owner, who paid another lab owner to direct urine samples to his lab for testing and then billed the federal government for that testing, was sentenced last week to four months of house arrest and ordered to pay a total of $510,000 in forfeiture, restitution, and fines.

Rakesh Reddy Kothuru, 49, pled guilty in January 2022 to one count of knowingly and willfully making false representations of material facts for payments under federal health care programs.  The conviction means Kothuru is subject to mandatory exclusion from future participation in federal health care benefit programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. Pursuant to his plea agreement, Kothuru was required to pay $500,000 prior to his sentencing to be credited toward the court-ordered forfeiture and restitution. 

According to court documents, Kothuru was the majority owner of Laboratory Services of America, LLC (LSA), a Las Vegas-based lab that provided drug testing on urine samples. After performing that testing, ATL routinely sent tested samples to other laboratories for “confirmation” testing. 

One of those other labs included American Toxicology Labs (ATL), formerly owned by Michael Norman Dube, who also owned a chain of clinics in Tennessee and Virginia that purported to treat opioid addiction with buprenorphine. Providers at those clinics frequently ordered urine drug screens for their patients in order to assess current drug use and to gather medically necessary information that would be pertinent to treatment.  

In January 2015, Kothuru and Dube entered into an arrangement in which Dube would refer all of ATL’s tested urine samples to LSA for confirmation testing in exchange for cash kickback payments to Dube’s personal checking account.  

Between March 23, 2015, and September 20, 2016, Kothuru’s lab received more than $750,000 from Medicare, Virginia Medicaid, Kentucky Medicaid, and TennCare in compensation for confirmation testing performed on samples directly related to services illegally billed and collected in accordance with the kickback scheme between Kothuru and Dube.

As part of a previous guilty plea in 2011 to intentionally omitting information from reports as required under the Controlled Substances Act, Dube had been prohibited by the Department of Health and Human Services from ever participating in any federal health care program again.  As part of his involvement in the kickback scheme with Kothuru, Dube pleaded guilty in March 2021 to two counts of health care fraud, sentenced to 36 months in federal prison, and ordered to pay over $9,000,000 in fines, forfeitures, and restitution costs.

United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh of the Western District of Virginia announced the sentence today.

The Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Whit D. Pierce and Randy Ramseyer, and Special Assistant United States Attorney and Assistant Attorney General Janine M. Myatt prosecuted the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Tampa, FL – A Florida corporation pleaded guilty in federal court in the Middle District of Florida to a charge of willfully violating an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule. The criminal charge related to an explosion at a coal-fired power plant in 2017 that caused the deaths of five workers.

Tampa Electric Company (TECO) operates several facilities in Florida, including Big Bend, a coal-fired power plant outside of Tampa. At the time, the facility consisted of four large coal-fired furnaces. Underneath the furnaces were water-filled tanks designed to catch and cool the molten “slag” by-product that drips down from the furnace. On June 29, 2017, hardened slag had accumulated at the top and the bottom of the slag tank and could not be removed. Rather than shutting down the furnace, TECO called in a contractor to perform high-pressure water blasting to try and clear the slag with the unit on-line. The work proceeded without observance of several safety-related procedures required by law. Five people were killed when one of the slag accumulations came loose, spraying the area with molten slag.

Federal law makes it a class B misdemeanor to willfully fail to follow an OSHA safety standard, where the failure causes the death of an employee. The class B misdemeanor is the only federal criminal charge covering such workplace safety violations.

“This incident demonstrates the importance of OSHA’s safety standards, and the harms that they are designed to prevent,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “The deaths caused by the defendant’s conduct were tragic and they were preventable. The Justice Department will vigorously prosecute those who fail to follow these critical safety rules.”

“Had TECO complied with OSHA’s workplace safety standards, conducted a pre-job briefing and followed its own procedure, these senseless deaths could have been prevented,” said U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg for the Middle District of Florida. “Our hearts go out to the victims’ families as well as other TECO employees and contractors impacted by this catastrophic event “Our office is proud to have partnered with DOJ’s Environmental Crimes Section to shine a light on this willful violation of OSHA safety standards in order to deter such conduct and ensure that workers are protected in the future.”

“This investigation demonstrates the FBI’s unyielding commitment to the mission of protecting the American people and upholding the United States Constitution,” said Special Agent in Charge David Walker for FBI Tampa Field Office. “Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the victims’ families along with our promise to work with our federal partners in ensuring the safety of America’s workplaces.”

In a plea agreement with the government, TECO admitted to willfully failing to hold a pre-job briefing with the workers performing the work. Such briefing should have included the procedures for the water blasting work. Instead, the work proceeded even though the procedures could not be found. As a result, certain critical safety-related steps were not taken, including lowering the amount of coal entering the furnace, and shutting the unit down after a specified interval had lapsed.

The FBI and the Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General investigated the case.

Trial Attorney Adam Cullman of the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachelle DesVaux Bedke for the Middle District of Florida prosecuted the case.