The charges against the ten Southern California defendants are part of a coordinated, nationwide enforcement action – the National Health Care Fraud Takedown – that resulted in charges against 455 defendants across 56 federal districts and 45 states and territories. Those defendants, who include 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals, are alleged to have participated in health care fraud and opioid schemes involving more than $6.5 billion in false claims.

In the Central District of California, federal prosecutors brought criminal charges against ten defendants accused either of defrauding government health programs or of abusing prescribing authority to dispense controlled substances. Six cases are summarized below.

– –  United States v. Dorsey — workers’ compensation fraud. Dr. Eugene Richard Dorsey, 83, of Orange, a psychiatrist, is charged via information with health care fraud for allegedly falsifying psychiatric reports so claimants would qualify for federal workers’ compensation and submitting false reimbursement claims, resulting in roughly $1.83 million in overpayments to the U.S. Department of Labor’s workers’ compensation program between December 2020 and December 2025. He faces up to 10 years.

– –  United States v. Mareik — the $270 million Medi-Cal pharmacy scheme. Christina Mareik, 61, of Whittier, was arrested June 17 on a complaint charging health care fraud and released on $100,000 bond. She allegedly created fraudulent prescriptions for Medi-Cal beneficiaries and directed another participant to sign them despite knowing the patients had not been seen and the drugs were not medically necessary. Prosecutors allege that from May 2022 to April 2023 the scheme billed Medi-Cal nearly $270 million for expensive, non-contracted drugs containing low-cost generic ingredients, with Medi-Cal paying more than $178 million. The scheme allegedly exploited a temporary suspension of Medi-Cal’s prior-authorization requirements during a transition to a new payment system. Mareik worked with patient marketer Paul Richard Randall, 67 (who pleaded guilty in April to wire fraud committed while on release and faces up to 30 years at sentencing), pharmacy owner Kyrollos Mekail, 38, and Patricia Anderson, 59. Mareik faces a statutory maximum of 10 years.

– – United States v. Shachar, et al. — $27 million in hospice fraud. Oren David Shachar, 59, of Van Nuys, along with marketers Abraham Shin, 66, and Jeannie Choi, 57, is charged in a 16-count indictment with conspiring to defraud Medicare of roughly $27 million. From February 2021 to March 2026, Shachar allegedly billed for hospice services that were medically unnecessary (the beneficiaries were not terminally ill) or never provided (some beneficiaries were already deceased), and paid illegal kickbacks to procure and retain enrollees. Shin and Choi allegedly sold living and deceased patients’ identifying information to Shachar. The counts include health care fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, and Anti-Kickback Statute violations; the defendants face decades in prison.

– –  United States v. Lopez — a $9 million laboratory scheme. Brenda Lee Lopez, 63, of Norwalk, a medical office manager, is charged in a grand jury indictment with seven counts of health care fraud and six counts of aggravated identity theft. She allegedly prepared false test orders using the forged signatures of four medical providers, for beneficiaries who provided no specimens and some of whom were deceased. The laboratory billed Medicare roughly $9.1 million and was paid about $2.1 million, allegedly paying Lopez and family members about $335,000 in return. She faces up to 10 years per fraud count plus a mandatory two-year consecutive term per identity-theft count.

– –  United States v. Galbraith — hospice billing. Lynn Galbraith, 59, of Anaheim, owner of Garden Grove–based Azure Hospice Care Inc., is charged in a single-count information with health care fraud for allegedly submitting about $2.27 million in fraudulent Medicare hospice claims between April 2021 and February 2024, of which Medicare paid roughly $2.14 million. She faces up to 10 years.

– –  United States v. Khader, et al. — physicians prescribing to one another. Three physicians—Wisam Khader, 36, Patrick Murphy, 40, and Justin Evans, 37—are charged in a single-count indictment with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. They allegedly wrote nearly 90 prescriptions to one another, outside the course of professional practice, for drugs including amphetamine, oxycodone, buprenorphine, diazepam, morphine, and pregabalin. They face up to 40 years.

These are charges at varying procedural stages – complaints, informations, and indictments – and several defendants have already had initial appearances, with arraignments and trial dates set into the summer. The penalties described are statutory maximums, not sentences; actual sentences, if any defendant is convicted, would be determined by the court. As noted above, all defendants are presumed innocent.

The cases were investigated by a mix of federal and state agencies, including the FBI, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the California Department of Justice, and the Fraud Division of the California Department of Insurance. They are being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the Central District of California and Trial Attorneys from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Fraud Section. The announcement situates the local cases within the work of the Department’s newly created National Fraud Enforcement Division and its Health Care Strike Force program.