Jury Acquitted Lab Owners in Nearly $40 Million COVID-19 Fraud Case

Jury Acquitted Lab Owners in Nearly $40 Million COVID-19 Fraud Case

On March 27, a Florida jury acquitted two testing lab co-owners of conspiracy, health care fraud, and wire fraud charges. Innovative Genomics, LLC owners Diego Sanchez Chocron and Gregory “Milo” Caskey were charged and acquitted on all seven fraud counts that were remaining against them. A third co-defendant previously pled guilty and later testified at trial.

According to the indictment, between November 2019 and June 2023, the three defendant-lab owners submitted claims for medically unnecessary and non-reimbursable COVID-19 tests to Medicare and to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) COVID-19 Uninsured Program through their company.

The alleged scheme involved a number of other aspects as well, such as (1) illegal kickbacks and bribes to patient recruiters who arranged for health care providers to refer the COVID-19 tests to Innovative Genomics, (2) billing for tests that the US Food and Drug Administration had not approved for emergency-use, (3) bribes and kickbacks to co-conspirators to arrange and order antigen and other COVID-19 tests that could be billed to Medicare and the HRSA program, and (4) payments to health care providers, including doctors, to repeatedly order tests regardless of whether the beneficiaries were prior patients or being treated for COVID-19. The alleged scheme involved more than $36.4 million worth of claims and nearly $28.6 million in payouts.

The US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) press release about the indictment is here.

Case Against NYC Mayor Adams’ Dismissed With Prejudice

On April 2, US District Judge Dale Ho, for the Southern District of New York, permanently dismissed the pending corruption charges against New York City Mayor, Eric Adams. The decision comes after a dramatic series of events, including resignations by top prosecutors involved in the case, allegations that Mayor Adams’ legal team offered a quid pro quo, and the court’s appointment of an amicus curiae.

The government’s motion to dismiss the charges against Mayor Adams was made under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), which allows the government to dismiss an indictment with leave of the court. According to Judge Ho’s decision, courts have generally agreed that the primary purpose of Rule 48(a) is to protect a defendant’s rights, including the right to be free from prosecutorial harassment. Judges thus have discretion to grant a Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss with prejudice to fulfill that purpose.

In Mayor Adams’ case, the government’s motion to dismiss without prejudice advanced two grounds for dismissal — (1) appearances of impropriety and risks of interference with the 2025 elections in New York City and (2) interference with Mayor Adams’ ability to govern New York City, which poses threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration policies. Judge Ho found that both rationales, even when taken at face value, counseled in favor of dismissal with prejudice to avoid the appearance that Mayor Adams may be beholden to the federal government, which would be the power to re-indict him at its discretion.

The opinion is available here.

DOJ Moved to Dismiss FCPA Case Against Former Cognizant Executives

On April 2, the DOJ moved to dismiss its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) case against Gordon Coburn, the former president, and Steven Schwartz, the former chief legal officer, of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. Coburn and Schwartz were charged in February 2019 with authorizing a $2 million bribe related to a construction project in India in exchange for a permit.

Less than a week before Coburn and Schwartz were scheduled to go to trial, however, the government moved to dismiss the case. The government’s basis for requesting dismissal is the Trump Administration’s executive order curtailing bribery prosecutions. The motion requests dismissal against both Coburn and Schwartz with prejudice “because further prosecution is not in the interests of the United States at this time.”

The motion is available here.