Category: MIL-OSI

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

The City of Atlanta’s former chief financial officer (CFO) was sentenced today to 36 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $177,197.48 and a fine of $10,000 for abusing his position to steal public money and obstruct the IRS.

According to court documents, from 2011 to 2018, Jimmie Anthony “Jim” Beard, 60, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, oversaw the City of Atlanta’s Department of Finance, in which his primary responsibility was to manage the city’s financial condition. At least as early as 2015, Beard devised and executed a scheme to use his authority as CFO to obtain money and property from Atlanta for his own use, including to pay for thousands of dollars in personal travel expenses for himself, his family, and his travel companions, and to buy and possess restricted machine guns.

Further, while CFO, Beard submitted years of fraudulent tax returns in which he claimed personal business expenses to lower what he owed in taxes. During a 2015 audit of one of those returns, Beard lied to the IRS and obstructed auditors by submitting receipts for transactions that were actually paid by the City of Atlanta in connection with Beard’s official duties. The investigation later revealed that Beard had no personal business, and years of tax deductions were based on a lie. 

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan for the Northern District of Georgia; Executive Director Michael Nordwall of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch; Special Agent in Charge Keri Farley of the FBI Atlanta Field Office; Special Agent in Charge Demetrius Hardeman of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Atlanta Field Office; and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alicia D. Jones of ATF Atlanta Field Division made the announcement.

The FBI, IRS-CI, and ATF investigated the case.

Trial Attorney Trevor Wilmot of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Garrett Bradford, Tiffany Johnson, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Davis for the Northern District of Georgia prosecuted the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A Mississippi seafood distributor and two company managers pleaded guilty today to conspiring with others to mislabel seafood and to commit wire fraud by marketing inexpensive and frozen imported substitutes as more expensive and premium local species. 

Quality Poultry and Seafood Inc. (QPS), the largest seafood wholesaler on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, has agreed to pay the United States $1 million in forfeitures and a criminal fine of $150,000. QPS sales manager Todd A. Rosetti and business manager James W. Gunkel, both of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, also pleaded guilty to misbranding seafood to facilitate QPS’ fraud. 

QPS admitted to participating in this fish substitution scheme from as early as 2002 and continuing through November 2019. The indictment alleges that QPS recommended and sold to its restaurant customers foreign-sourced fish that could serve as convincing substitutes for the local species the restaurants advertised on their menus. QPS also labeled the cheap imports that it sold to customers at its own retail shop and café as premium local fish.

“QPS and company officials went to great lengths in conspiring with others to perpetuate fraud for more than a decade, even after they knew they were under federal investigation,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “Mislabeling seafood harms local wholesalers and fishermen who compete to sell locally sourced, premium fish in a market unfairly flooded with less expensive fish, frozen and imported from overseas.”

“When imported substitutes are marketed as local domestic seafood, it depresses the value of authentic Gulf Coast seafood, which means that honest local fishermen and wholesalers have a harder time making a profit,” said U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee for the Southern District of Mississippi. “This kind of mislabeling fraud hurts the overall local seafood market and rips off restaurant customers who were paying extra to eat a premium local product. These convictions should serve as a warning: restaurants and wholesalers will face criminal prosecution if they are not honest with customers about what they are actually buying.”

“U.S. consumers expect their seafood to be correctly identified. When sellers purposefully substitute one fish species for another, they deceive consumers and cause potential food safety hazards to be overlooked or misidentified by processors or end users,” said Special Agent in Charge Justin Fielder of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Office of Criminal Investigations, Miami Field Office. “We will continue to investigate and bring to justice those who put profits above public health.”

The indictment alleges that even after agents from the FDA executed a criminal search warrant at QPS to investigate its sale of mislabeled fish, QPS continued for over a year to sell frozen fish imported from Africa, South America and India for use as substitutes for local premium species.

Mary Mahoney’s, which pleaded guilty in May, admitted that between December 2013 and November 2019, it fraudulently sold, as local premium species, approximately 58,750 pounds (over 29 tons) of fish that was not the species identified on its menu. QPS supplied seafood to Mary Mahoney’s and many other restaurant restaurants and retailers.

QPS, Rosetti and Gunkel will be sentenced on Dec. 11. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations is investigating the case.

Senior Trial Attorney Jeremy F. Korzenik of the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones for the Southern District of Mississippi are prosecuting the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A California man was sentenced today to 37 months in prison for his role in a $2.8 million fraud scheme in which Medicare was billed for hospice services that the patients did not need.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, John Thropay, M.D., 75, of Arcadia, was the medical director of multiple hospice companies, including Blue Sky Hospice Inc., located in Van Nuys, California. From October 2014 to March 2016, Thropay fraudulently certified Medicare patients of Blue Sky Hospice as having terminal illnesses that the patients did not have so that the company could bill Medicare for hospice services. In 2015, Thropay was listed as attending provider for more hospice claims paid by Medicare than any other provider in the nation.

Thropay was convicted at trial in the Central District of California of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and four counts of health care fraud on Feb. 15.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney E. Martin Estrada for the Central District of California, Acting Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office and Special Agent in Charge Timothy DeFrancesca of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG)’s Los Angeles Regional Office made the announcement.

The FBI and HHS-OIG investigated the case.

Assistant Deputy Chief Niall M. O’Donnell and Trial Attorney Eric C. Schmale of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case.

The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. Since March 2007, this program, currently comprised of nine strike forces operating in 27 federal districts, has charged more than 5,400 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $27 billion. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes. More information can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.