The district court granted the relator’s motion for summary judgment in a healthcare fraud case, finding that the defendants had either pled guilty or been found guilty in criminal court, and were therefore precluded from denying the identical allegations raised in the civil case.
Relator Gordon Bachman moved for summary judgment on his qui tam action alleging that Healthcare Liaison Professionals Inc. defrauded Medicare in violation of the False Claims Act. Specifically, Bachman moved for summary judgment against defendants Noble Ezukanma, Myrna Parcon, and Ransome Etindi.
In his complaint, the relator alleged that Ezukanma billed Medicare for services rendered to patients who he had improperly certified as being “homebound,” and that if Medicare had known about this practice, it would not have paid the submitted claims. The relator made similar allegations against the other defendants, asserting they had made false claims to Medicare after improperly certifying patients as homebound. He also alleged that the defendants made it appear as those various healthcare entities were distinct businesses, when in fact they were one global entity.
After Bachman brought his qui tam action alleging Medicare fraud and conspiracy, the government indicted the defendants on charged related to healthcare fraud. Parcon, Etindi, and a fourth defendant pleaded guilty. After a jury trial, Ezukanma was found guilty on all counts alleged in the superseding indictment, and was sentenced to 200 months of incarceration and 3 years of supervised release on each of the seven counts, to run concurrently. The court also ordered Ezukanma to pay restitution of $34,003,151.
The relator moved for summary judgment against the defendants, arguing that the criminal proceedings against them determined, as a matter of law, the predicate facts necessary to find them liable for violating the FCA and that they are bound by those determinations in this case.
At the outset, the court explained that the FCA prevents a defendant from challenging issues material and necessary to his criminal conviction in an attempt to defeat liability under the False Claims Act. Because the defendants’ convictions established the essential elements of the relator’s FCA claims, they were precluded from denying them later during a civil proceedings.
Next, the court concluded that the conduct for which the defendants had pled guilty in criminal court was the same as the conduct alleged in the relator’s complaint. Thus, the defendants were estopped from denying these allegations. Because no genuine dispute of fact existed, the court granted the relator’s motion for summary judgment.