Tag: 2019 News

The Ventura County District Attorney announced that Jaime Serna (DOB 1/29/1972), formerly of Fillmore, pied guilty to a felony violation of Insurance Code section 1871.4(a)(l)-making a fraudulent statement of a material fact for the purpose of obtaining workers’ compensation benefits.

Serna was employed by Agromin in Santa Paula as a truck driver and injured his right shoulder on May 12, 2010. He was placed off work on temporary total disability and had shoulder surgery on September 10, 2010. He remained off work and continued to collect temporary total disability benefits of two-thirds of his salary, tax free.

On February 12, 2012, Agromin received a tip that Serna was working on cars and engaging in physical activities that contradicted his claimed physical limitations.

Agromin notified their workers’ compensation insurance administrator, who retained private investigators to conduct surveillance of Serna.

Investigators obtained seven and a half hours of surveillance video of Serna working on cars at his residence. He was seen removing a radiator from the engine compartment, removing and replacing batteries and the wheels and tires of the vehicle. He picked up a 36-pound floor jack with his right arm and carried it into his garage.

On July 12, 2012, Serna gave a deposition and lied under oath about his injuries. He stated he could not do anything at home and said the heaviest thing he could carry was one gallon of milk. He denied working on cars and said he was not even able to change the spark plugs on his vehicle.

Serna will be sentenced in courtroom 12 of the Ventura Superior Court, County of Ventura, on July 16, 2019, at 9:00 a.m. He faces a maximum of five years in jail.

The state legislature is considering a proposal that takes aim at Uber, Lyft and others using independent contractors by adopting the “ABC” employment test – but it could render the entertainment industry’s tax-lucrative loan-out companies useless.

The Hollywood Reporter magazine claims that Hollywood studio executives may be in for a shock when it comes to their budgets. A bill winding through California’s legislature that takes aim at gig-fueled companies like Uber and Postmates may upend long-standing showbiz practices by reclassifying scores of independent contractors as employees, and could render tax-lucrative loan-out companies useless.

The bill, AB 5, which the state assembly passed May 29, is designed to protect workers from being misclassified as independent contractors and therefore denied such employee protections as minimum wage, overtime pay and workers’ compensation. It seeks to codify and expand the California Supreme Court’s 2018 Dynamex decision, and would presume every worker is an employee – with a few exceptions for people like barbers and real estate agents – unless a company can show that the worker meets three criteria under the so-called ABC Test.

The requirement that makes Hollywood nervous is that the independent contractor must perform duties outside the usual course of the company’s business. “That test will necessarily lock talent out of being an independent contractor if it passes in its current form,” says talent lawyer Rick Genow, whose clients include Debra Messing, Anthony Anderson and Henry Golding. “The economic impact would be somewhat devastating to both talent and the studios.”

A doomsday scenario for Hollywood would look like this: A law is enacted with no exemption for entertainment workers; companies opt to treat everyone as employees for all purposes to avoid complications; and loan-outs are effectively dead in the water.

It’s often financially beneficial for talent to form their own corporation, and then that company loans out their services to other employers instead of those employers hiring them directly. Adds business manager Harley Neuman, who represents Ellen DeGeneres and Scarlett Johansson: “It would be catastrophic to our business if loan-outs went away.”

It’s unclear how much this bill would cost the entertainment business in total, but the state of California estimates it loses out on $7 billion in payroll tax revenue each year because of alleged misclassification across all industries. Economist Chris Thornberg of Beacon Economics says the bill aims to solve a problem that’s been overblown. “California’s economy has the lowest unemployment rate it has ever had,” he says. “People have options, and they’re still choosing to drive Uber or Lyft. The idea these people are being exploited and need help just doesn’t fly.” He expects film and TV productions would either leave the state or find ways to cut costs.

The language of the bill isn’t final, so some of the potential negative impacts could be avoided through amendments. The deadline to pass legislation before sending it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk is Sept. 13.

A psychiatrist who practiced at a Santa Ana clinic has been sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for issuing prescriptions for dangerous and addictive narcotics, such as the opioid oxycodone, without a medical purpose, to a drug dealer in exchange for cash, knowing the drugs would be sold on the street.

Dr. Robert Tinoco Perez, 57, of Westminster, was sentenced by United States District Judge Andrew J. Guilford. Perez pleaded guilty on February 25 to one felony count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

Perez was a 1994 graduate of the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine. He was licensed as a physician and surgeon in California on November 2. 1994. On May 1, 2019 the Medical Board accepted the surrender of his license, and he is no longer licensed in California. At the time disciplinary charges were pending against Perez for alleged sexual exploitation and sexual misconduct with a patient, among other charges.

Perez wrote prescriptions for “patients” he had never met or examined, including an undercover officer. Perez also created fictitious medical records for drug customers to provide justification for their prescriptions.

Perez used bogus patient names to write the fraudulent prescriptions to co-defendant William Jason Plumley, 41, of Huntington Beach, who sold the prescribed drugs – and also heroin and methamphetamine – to an undercover law enforcement officer. Plumley now is serving a 70-month federal prison sentence for selling prescriptions written by Perez as well as the drugs filled from Perez’s prescriptions. Plumley pleaded guilty in October 2018 to one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

The drugs prescribed illegally by Perez included oxycodone and hydrocodone (both opioid pain medications), amphetamine salts (sold primarily under the brand name Adderall), and alprazolam (sold primarily under the brand name Xanax).

Perez admitted in his plea agreement that between December 2017 and January 2018, he wrote prescriptions for fictitious patients for 240 pills of Adderall, 300 pills of Roxicodone (oxycodone), and 250 pills of Norco (hydrocodone). Perez sold the prescriptions to Plumley for at least $1,400, according to Perez’s plea agreement.

This case is part of Operation Hypocritical Oath, a series of investigations led by the Drug Enforcement Administration targeting medical professionals with criminal charges, search warrants, and administrative actions that have led to the revocation of DEA licenses.

This case is the result of an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Costa Mesa Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rosalind Wang of the Santa Ana Branch Office.

IBM, Merck and Walmart have been chosen for a U.S. Food and Drug Administration pilot program that will explore using blockchain technology to improve the security of prescription drug supply and distribution.

The companies said they would work with consultancy KPMG to create a shared blockchain network that will allow real-time monitoring of products in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

The project has been authorized under the U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act. DQSA, was enacted by Congress on November 27, 2013. Title II of DQSA outlines steps to build an electronic, interoperable system to identify and trace certain prescription drugs as they are distributed in the United States.

The act was passed to improve FDA’s ability to help protect consumers from exposure to drugs that may be counterfeit, stolen, contaminated, or otherwise harmful. The system will also improve detection and removal of potentially dangerous drugs from the drug supply chain to protect U.S. consumers.

Additionally, the DSCSA directs FDA to establish national licensure standards for wholesale distributors and third-party logistics providers, and requires these entities report licensure and other information to FDA annually.

The FDA has previously used the DSCSA to issue a warning letter to drug distributor McKesson Corp for violations involving opioid medications.

The new project is aimed at reducing the time needed to track and trace prescription drugs, improving access to reliable distribution information and ensuring products are handled appropriately and stored at the right temperature while being distributed, the companies said in a statement.

Blockchain technology, originally conceived a decade ago as the basis for the cryptocurrency bitcoin, will help stakeholders establish a permanent record and can be integrated with existing systems used to trace products while they are distributed.

The project is scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2019 and results will be published in a report, the companies said.

Two owners and operators of a home health agency were sentenced to 10 years and 6½ years in federal prison for their roles in a scheme to bill Medicare for various items and services – including home health services, diagnostic testing, medical procedures and durable medical equipment – that were not medically necessary and/or were not provided.

Angela Avetisyan, 43, of Glendale, was sentenced to 120 months in prison by United States District Judge Otis D. Wright II, who also ordered Avetisyan to pay $4,283,674 in restitution and to forfeit all right, title, and interest in $172,000 seized by the government in May 2014, as well as six real properties purchased with fraud proceeds. The Court ordered Avetisyan to make an immediate partial restitution payment of $10,000.

Ashot Minasyan, 61, of North Hollywood, was sentenced to 78 months in prison by Judge Wright, who also ordered Minasyan to pay $4,283,674 in restitution and to forfeit all right, title, and interest in the same $172,000 and six real properties. The Court ordered Minasyan to make an immediate partial restitution payment of $100,000.

Avetisyan and Minasyan were charged along with Robert Glazer, 73, and Marina Merino, 62, both of Los Angeles, in a second superseding indictment returned in June 2015. On June 7, 2019, co-defendants Glazer and Merino were found guilty after a seven-day trial of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and health care fraud.

Avetisyan and Minasyan each pleaded guilty on Oct. 9, 2018, to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. As part of their guilty pleas, Avetisyan and Minasyan admitted that, as co-owners and operators of the Los Angeles-based Fifth Avenue Home Health, they engaged in a conspiracy with Glazer, Merino and others to recruit Medicare patients to Glazer’s clinic so that Glazer could use those patients’ information to bill for medically unnecessary outpatient clinic services and refer those patients for medically unnecessary home health services from Fifth Avenue and other home health agencies. Avetisyan and Minasyan further admitted that they paid Merino and other patient recruiters illegal kickbacks to bring Medicare patients to the Glazer clinic.

As found at sentencing by the Court, Avetisyan and Minasyan, along with their co-conspirators, submitted and caused to be submitted false and fraudulent claims for home health services that were medically unnecessary, for services that were not provided and for claims obtained by the payment of illegal kickbacks.

Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which maintains 14 strike forces operating in 23 districts, has charged nearly 4,000 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $14 billion. In addition, the HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.