The Orange County District Attorney has refiled a felony complaint against Kareem Ahmed, Andrew Jarminski, Michael Rudolph and Norma Garner. The new filing follows a Court of Appeal victory for the defendants earlier this year. This new filing will be round two of the major legal battle.

In 2014 an Orange County Grand Jury indicted 45-year-old Kareem Ahmed and 14 others, alleging he formulated topical creams and oversaw an extensive network of kickbacks that paid doctors and pharmacists more than $25 million to prescribe and distribute the products. Ahmed, president of Ontario company Landmark Medical Management, and the others faced a total of 44 counts on felony charges including conspiracy, trading rebates for patient referrals, insurance fraud and involuntary manslaughter, according to the original two grand jury indictments. The amounts individual doctors received between 2010 and 2013 allegedly ranged from $600,000 to more than $2.5 million. Among those Ahmed allegedly paid were Daniel Capen, M.D. (more than $2.5 million); Andrew Jarminski, M.D. (more than $1.9 million); pharmacist Michael Rudolph (more than $1 million); and Rahil Kahn, M.D. (more than $1 million), according to the indictment.

The grand jury was instructed that it had to unanimously find a defendant committed only a single act encompassed within the count to return a true bill on that count. After the grand jury found the indictments to be true, defendants demurred in the trial court, resulting in the People amending the indictments to add hundreds of new counts – a separate count for each victim – and adding an additional allegation in a single count of involuntary manslaughter.

The defendants moved to set aside the amended indictments on the ground the grand jury had not made separate findings as to each victim, but instead had been instructed to find only one act. Defendants posited that the amendments thus impermissibly changed the offenses charged by the grand jury in violation of Penal Code section 1009. As to the involuntary manslaughter count, the defendants contended the new allegation, embedded in the single charge of involuntary manslaughter, also impermissibly changed the offense charged by the grand jury. The court denied the motion.

The Court of Appeal reversed and remanded in the case of Kareem Ahmed v Superior Court.

The Court of Appeal ruled that “there is no logical basis upon which we can conclude that the grand jury made a finding as to each of the new counts in the amended indictment. The additional counts are new offenses, not shown to be found by the grand jury, and thus changed the offenses charged in violation of section 1009. Accordingly, the indictment was ‘not found, endorsed, and presented as prescribed in’ the Penal Code….. Based on our conclusion that adding multiple counts of insurance fraud changed the offense charged in violation of section 1009, we will grant the petition for writ of mandate setting aside most of the charges in the two indictments.”

After this ruling by the Court of Appeal, one of the problems prosecutors will face is a claim that the case is now barred by statute of limitations. However the refiled felony complaint alleges that some of the “overt acts” upon which the felony charges are based continue to occur up through April 16, 2016 as the defendants continue to pursue collection of their liens. Prosecutors for example allege that “between 6/27/14 and 12/31/15 Ahmed paid $800,000 in lien activation or filing fees to collect on over $58 millions dollars in false claims generated based on kickbacks to medical providers.” And that “Ahmed employed the Blue Law Group, and Michael Blue, to aggressively collect on these false claims.” And despite “a Court order by the workers compensation appeals board Judge, Norma Garner and Michael Blue, at Ahmed’s direction, continued to hide the terms of Ahmed’s agreements with various physicians and pharmacists on 3/10/16 and 4/14/16 in Case # ADJ2262813, Applicant: Oscar Arreola in order to continue to collect on these false claims”.

it is further alleged by prosecutors pursuant to Penal Code section 803(b) that a previous prosecution of defendants for the same conduct commenced within the meaning of Section 804(a), namely, an indictment or information was filed, and was pending which protects the case from the running of the statute of limitations..