FBI raids three Southern California hospitals in probe of Medicare fraud
The centers allegedly used skid row homeless to fill empty bids and boost their revenue. L.A. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo plans to announce civil litigation against the hospitals' operators.
FBI agents served search warrants this morning on three hospitals as part of an investigation into alleged Medicare fraud involving homeless patients who were recruited from skid row.
Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo plans later today to announce civil litigation -- filed this morning -- against the three hospitals and their operators in what officials said was a "scheme to defraud the Medi-Cal and Medicare programs out of millions of dollars."
The raids cap what law enforcement sources told The Times was a nearly two-year investigation of alleged medical fraud on skid row.
The city attorney's office alleged that the hospitals tried to fill empty beds in a bid to boost their finances.
The hospitals allegedly were aided by a patient recruiting operation on skid row that plucked homeless people from the streets and delivered them with fake medical conditions to the hospitals.
Beginning at 8 a.m., agents working with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the California Department of Justice raided City of Angels Medical Center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center and Tustin Hospital and Medical Center.
At City of Angels, FBI agents and members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's major-crimes squad, providing backup, entered the building shortly after 8. Employees gathered in small groups in the lobby, where they had been told to wait. Sitting at tables with colleagues or talking on cellphones, most said they were puzzled by the search.
"At first, when I saw all these agents in all their shirts, I thought it must be a training exercise," said one employee who refused to give his name, saying he didn't want trouble with his boss. "But then I realized it was the real thing. They told me I couldn't go back to my work area."
Near the entrance to the hospital's administrative offices, dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement personnel gathered, their shirts bearing the logos of their agencies. Half an hour into the search, a team of computer forensics experts from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services arrived with large briefcases on rollers. Medical center employees estimated that there were at least 50 members of the search team.
Two men were arrested in the raids, including a top executive at City of Angels. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the reason for the arrests would be announced later.
