Federal prosecutors announced that 65 year old Dr. Janardhan Grandhe, who lives in Bakersfield, was sentenced to one year and one day of prison for tax evasion, after pleading guilty of that offense in October 2022.

Medical Board of California records show that Grandhe was a 1981 graduate of Osmania University, Kakatiya Medical College located in Warangal, Telangana, India, and was issued a California Physician and Surgeon license in February 1994. The license is currently renewed and current with no record of disciplinary matters pending or in the past.

According to court documents, Grandhe was a pain management doctor in Bakersfield, doing business as Central Valley Pain Management (CVPM) located at 6401 Truxtun Ave B, Bakersfield, CA 93309.

In 2017, 2018 and 2019, he willfully filed false tax returns for CVPM with overstated expenses and false individual tax returns for himself that omitted gross receipts he received. In total, Grandhe evaded personal tax liability exceeding $300,000.

Between 2017 and 2019, Grandhe provided checks to employees claiming to be reimbursements for employee expenses that were then included as deductions on the CVPM tax returns. Grandhe claimed the reimbursements were for out-of-pocket costs incurred by employees for continuing medical education, meals, mileage, and travel expenses. In many cases, those expenses were never incurred by the employees.

Grandhe instead instructed those employees to cash the checks and provide cash back to Grandhe, which he deposited into accounts controlled by him or his family members. Grandhe then provided false documentation to his tax preparer to support the false deductions.

According to court documents, between 2017 and 2019, Grandhe also diverted business receipts to his personal bank accounts and hid this money from his tax preparer so that these amounts would not be included as business gross receipts on the CVPM tax returns. The unreported income on the CVPM tax returns resulted in decreased net income on Grandhe’s personal tax returns, reducing his taxes based on false information.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Spivak prosecuted the case.