Forensics Talk

42 Defendants Indicted in $4.6 Million California Health Care Fraud Scheme

Free Republic

Dept. of Justice

United States Attorney's Office Central District of California
July 9, 2009

     "Federal and state authorities this morning arrested 20 defendants accused of being part of ring that defrauded Medi-Cal out of nearly $4.6 million by using unlicensed individuals to provide in-home care to scores of disabled patients, many of them children with cerebral palsy or developmental disabilities.

The 20 defendants arrested this morning are among 42 defendants named in a 41-count indictment that was returned by a federal grand jury on June 25. The indictment is part of an investigation called Operation License Integrity, a two-year investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, and the Office of the California Attorney General-Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse. The indictment alleges that the 42 defendants and two others, one of whom has already pleaded guilty to health care fraud charges, conspired to bill Medi-Cal nearly $4.6 million for in-home licensed nursing services that were actually provided by unlicensed individuals.

“We believe that this is the largest single case alleging Medi-Cal fraud ever filed in the state,” said United States Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien. “The nearly four dozen people associated with this fraud ring not only cheated taxpayers, they endangered the lives of young people they promised to protect and care for.” . . . The organizer of the ring, Priscilla Villabroza, a registered nurse who ran a Santa Fe Springs-based company called Medcare Plus Home Health Providers, pleaded guilty in federal court last year to five counts of health care fraud. According to court documents, . . . Villabroza and others hired unlicensed individuals to provide services to the disabled Medi-Cal patients and billed Medi- Cal as if they were licensed vocational nurses (LVNs). . . ." Read More   

Three More Sentenced In Fake Drugs Conspiracy Trial, UK

Medical News Today

Article Date: 12 Jul 2009

     "The seventh and final member of a multi-million pound international counterfeit gang was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court earlier this week, 6 July 2009.

The 12 month sentence, suspended for two years, concluded a series of trials carried out by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) under the London based investigation Operation Stormgrand.

Alpesh Patel, 42, was prosecuted for masterminding an industrial scale conspiracy of supplying counterfeit medicines between 2002 and 2005 involving millions of pounds worth of fake Viagra, Cialis and Propecia.

Operation Stormgrand has also led to convictions totalling 17.5 years imprisonment and confiscation orders to the sum of £3,074,242.

The 2005 MHRA investigation unravelled the largest ever scam of counterfeit medicines in the UK with more than £1.5 million of fake drugs seized during the operation. . . " Read More

Is Your City Prepared For A Home-Made Nuke?

New Scientist

08 July 2009 by David Shiga

     "AS US president Barack Obama visits Moscow this week to discuss nuclear arms reduction with his Russian opposite number Dmitry Medvedev, a different nuclear threat is preoccupying emergency planners back home. A panel of medical experts has just released its assessment of the technologies and therapies that could be rolled out if a home-made nuclear bomb was ever detonated in the heart of an American city.

A device of this kind - now judged by Obama to pose "the most immediate and extreme threat to global security" - would kill hundreds of thousands of people. But as catastrophic as such an attack would be, it would not level an entire city, and a timely response could save many lives. Recent advances in techniques for mapping the path of radioactive fallout after an attack, combined with novel therapies for treating radiation victims, will improve survival chances, the report says. . . " Read More

 

Cache of Antiquities Discovered Near the National Museum in Cairo

Biblical Archaeology Review

July, 10, 2009

     "A hoard of archaeological treasures was recently found close to the Western gate of the National Museum in Cairo. Some of the items found in the cache date back to 1300 B.C. and include a limestone table, a slab fragment inscribed with hieroglyphics as well as the base of a pharaonic pillar.

The secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, speculates that these items may have already been discovered by archaeologists years ago when it was practice to bury finds that were considered useless or irrelevant in the Museum’s garden. . . " Read More

Archaeological Views: Carbon 14—The Solution to Dating David and Solomon?

Biblical Archaeology Review

By Lily Singer-Avitz

 

    

"The date of the transition from the archaeological period known as Iron Age I to Iron Age IIa is a particularly hotly disputed topic, especially because the date of the transition is crucial for elucidating the history and material culture of the reigns of David and Solomon.

According to the so-called high chronology, the transition occurred around 1000 or 980 B.C.E. It is generally recognized that David conquered Jerusalem in about 1000 B.C.E. According to the low chronology, the transition to Iron Age IIa occurred around 920–900 B.C.E. Other opinions place the transition somewhere between the two—in about 950 B.C.

The date is important because the date you choose will determine whether David and Solomon reigned in the archaeologically poor and archaeologically poorly documented Iron I or in the comparatively rich and richly documented Iron IIa.

However, the differences in data between the various schools are not dramatically far apart. They range between 30 and 80 years. . . The hope of many scholars who feel that this science-based radiocarbon research will bring the debate to its longed-for solution is, in my view, difficult to adopt." Read More

Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies

 Justice Strategies

      "Youth crime in the United States remains near the lowest levels seen in the past three decades, yet public concern and media coverage of gang activity has skyrocketed since 2000. Fear has spread from neighborhoods with longstanding gang problems to communities with historically low levels of crime, and some policy makers have declared the arrival of a national gang “crisis.” Yet many questions remain unanswered.

Youth crime in the United States remains near the lowest levels seen in the past three decades, yet public concern and media coverage of gang activity has skyrocketed since 2000. Fear has spread from neighborhoods with longstanding gang problems to communities with historically low levels of crime, and some policy makers have declared the arrival of a national gang “crisis.” Yet many questions remain unanswered. How can communities and policy makers differentiate between perceived threats and actual challenges presented by gangs?

   Which communities are most affected by gangs, and what is the nature of that impact? How much of the crime that plagues poor urban neighborhoods is attributable to gangs? And what approaches work to promote public safety? . . . Los Angeles is a case in point. Author and former California state senator Tom Hayden reports that thousands of young people have been killed in Los Angeles gang conflicts despite decades of extremely aggressive gang enforcement. . .  " Read More

Thoughtful New District Court Opinion Adopting 1:1 Crack/powder Ratio Sentencing Guideines

  Sentencing Law & Policy                                                                 

     Do we want crack dealers out on the streets earlier? Are they more dangerous than a powder cocaine addict? Read below:

 Post:

   "I am pleased to be able to post a new opinion from a district court that provides a thorough and thoughtful account of why the court has adopted a 1:1 ratio for crack sentence cases.  Here is the openning paragraph and one key passage from US v. Gully, No. CR 08-3005-MWB (N.D. Iowa May 18, 2009) . . ."

Excellent comments left below the post: 

     "Notice I say "offenders" and not types of drug. One of the things that gets lost in the popular press and, consequently, the debate on the 100:1 ratio is what the law actually is punishing. Certainly there can be no doubt that crack is cocaine. While I do not doubt the many anecdotal stories and medical studies that suggest that crack is more dangerous to it's user, the criminal sanctions are against the individuals selling crack and powder, and the differential conduct they engage in, not the drugs themselves. That may seem simple, but I think it's lost on many people.

The only pertinent question to ask when determining punishment is what are differences between these two groups of offenders that suggest one crime is more serious, more dangerous, and more ruinous to the community than the other?

To put it simply, the answer to this question is obvious to anyone bothering to look at the facts rather than simply go with the prevailing wind or pander to race politics.

You may comfortably set aside the facts about what crack did to communities around this country in the '80's and '90's, probably because many lawyers and judges live comfortably far from these ravaged communities.

You may comfortably dismiss the individual human toll of crack because crack is very often a poor man's drug and many lawyers and judges also avoid personal or familial knowledge of the personal devastation of crack. . . " Read More

Restorative Justice and Child Sex Offences: The Theory and the Practice

Annie Cossins
University of New South Wales - Faculty of Law

British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 48, pp. 359-378, 2008
UNSW Law Research Paper No. 2008-43

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1398603

"Abstract:     
Restorative justice advocates have made a number of claims about the effectiveness of restorative justice in relation to sexual assault crimes, such as its ability to defuse power relations between the parties and heal the harm. This article examines whether or not restorative justice is one of the ways forward in the difficult area of prosecuting child sex offences by re-analysing some of the data reported in Daly (2006) and comparing restorative justice with other reforms to the sexual assault trial. It concludes that there is insufficient evidence to support the view that there are inherent benefits in the restorative justice process that provide victims of sexual assault with a superior form of justice. "