A clinic office manager pled guilty for his role in a healthcare fraud scheme that involved the unnecessary prescription of controlled substances and resulted in a $131 million loss to Medicare.
Yasser Mozeb, 35, of Oakland County, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive health care kickbacks.
Mozeb was the office manager of the Tri-County Network based in Detroit.
“With one American dying of a drug overdose every nine minutes, we are facing the deadliest drug crisis in American history,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Sadly, some have chosen to take advantage of this crisis and exploit vulnerable patients for profit."
"At the Department of Justice, we’ve taken a number of new steps this past year to fight opioid-related fraud. Today we have won another victory in this fight and I want to thank our FBI agents, DOJ attorneys, and everyone else who helped us bring the defendant to justice.”
As part of his guilty plea, Mozeb admitted that he conspired with the owner of the Tri-County Network, Mashiyat Rashid, to pay illegal kickbacks and bribes to Medicare beneficiaries, co-conspirator patient recruiters and others, in order to obtain patients fro the Tri-County Network.
Mozeb also admitted that he participated in a scheme with Rashid and other co-conspirators to prescribe medically unnecessary controlled substances, which allegedly included oxycodone, hydrocodone and oxymorphone, to Medicare beneficiaries, many of whom were addicted to narcotics.
He was reportedly part of a conspiracy that submitted or caused the submission of false and fraudulent claims to Medicare in excess of $131 million, Mozeb admitted.
Mozeb is the fifth defendant who has pleaded guilty in connection with the Tri-County investigation.
He was charged along with Mashiyat Rashid, 37, of West Bloomfield, Michigan; Spilios Pappas, 61, of Monclova, Ohio; Abdul Haq, 72, of Ypsilanti, Michigan; Joseph Betro, 57, of Novi, Michigan; Tariq Omar, 61, of West Bloomfield, Michigan; and Mohammed Zahoor, 51 of Novi, Michigan.
