The office manager and part-owner of a Reseda medical clinic known as M.T.P. Medical Clinic, Inc., has been sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for his role in a healthcare fraud scheme that generated millions of dollars – money that was not reported on his federal income tax returns.

Michael Huynh, 67, of Northridge, was sentenced by United States District Judge Otis D. Wright II. In addition to the prison term, Judge Wright ordered Huynh to pay just over $1.9 million in restitution to the victim insurance companies and back taxes – estimated to be nearly $950,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Following a seven-day trial in September 2016, Huynh was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and 11 counts of filing false tax returns.

The evidence introduced at trial showed that between January 2004 and November 2009 Huynh and a pharmacist participated in a healthcare fraud scheme that billed private insurance plans for prescription medication that was never dispensed to insured patients.

Huyhn provided co-conspirator Farhad N. Dany Sharim with bogus prescriptions purportedly for patients of the medial clinic who were insured by healthcare benefit programs such as Aetna. Sharim, a co-owner of Century Discount Pharmacy located at 18254 Sherman Way in Reseda, then submitted false and fraudulent bills for prescription drugs that had not been dispensed to the patients.

As a result, Sharim’s pharmacy received substantial payments from various health care benefit programs to which it was not entitled, and Sharim paid Huyhn more than $1.1 million from the pharmacy proceeds.

In order to disguise the payments that he received from co-conspirator Sharim in exchange for the falsified prescriptions, Hunyh provided co- conspirator Sharim with false invoices in the name of H. D. H. Advertising for purported advertising services rendered to CDP. Hunyh received approximately eighty-two CDP checks signed by co-conspirator Sharim totaling approximately $1, 172, 907, which were disguised as payments for’ advertising services and made payable to his grandniece.

Farhad N. Dany Sharim, 57, of Sherman Oaks, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and will be sentenced by Judge Wright on May 1.

The Board of Pharmacy filed a disciplinary accusation against Century Discount Pharmacy, and owners Joseph Amin and Farhad Sharim and another pharmacist named Jong Am Kim in 2015.

The accusation said that the Boards investigation and “examination of prescription records for controlled substances raised many red flags including a repeating pattern of prescriptions written by Drs. Chumley and Rothman and Nurse Practitioner Park. Each prescription had nearly identical handwriting with similar spacing. In addition, most medical offices/clinics and patients were listed in either Compton or Los Angeles, CA, yet Respondent Century Discount Pharmacy, the pharmacy issuing the prescriptions, was located in Reseda, CA. More often than not, the patients traveled approximately 73 miles to fill their prescriptions.”

Certain prescribers responded to letters from the Board investigator. NP Park indicated that she did not write any of the prescriptions for the medications that were listed in the letter. Dr. Ahmed indicated that she had not seen the patients listed and did not prescribe any of the medications on the list. Drs. Byrd, Rothman, and Sison also indicated that they did not write any of the prescriptions on the list.