When: Sunday, November 17th
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.
Location: Graziano’s Pizza Restaurant, 333 Magnolia Ave., Corona, 92879 (Banquet Room)
Let’s meet-up! Join us for food, fun and friends as we celebrate National Diabetes Awareness Month!
PLEASE STAY TUNED… MORE EVENTS ARE COMING!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 31, 2019
MEDIA CONTACT:
Office of Communications
Tel: (202) 435-7170
AGENCIES ANNOUNCE DOLLAR THRESHOLDS IN REGULATIONS Z AND M FOR EXEMPT CONSUMER CREDIT AND LEASE TRANSACTIONS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Reserve Board today announced the dollar thresholds in Regulation Z (Truth in Lending) and Regulation M (Consumer Leasing) that will apply for determining exempt consumer credit and lease transactions in 2020. These thresholds are set pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) amendments to the Truth in Lending Act and the Consumer Leasing Act that require adjusting these thresholds annually based on the annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). If there is no annual percentage increase in the CPI-W, the Federal Reserve Board and the Bureau will not adjust this exemption threshold from the prior year. However, in years following a year in which the exemption threshold was not adjusted, the threshold is calculated by applying the annual percentage change in CPI-W to the dollar amount that would have resulted, after rounding, if the decreases and any subsequent increases in the CPI-W had been taken into account. Transactions at or below the thresholds are subject to the protections of the regulations.
Based on the annual percentage increase in the CPI-W as of June 1, 2019, the protections of the Truth in Lending Act and the Consumer Leasing Act generally will apply to consumer credit transactions and consumer leases of $58,300 or less in 2020. However, private education loans and loans secured by real property (such as mortgages) are subject to the Truth in Lending Act regardless of the amount of the loan.
Although the Dodd-Frank Act generally transferred rulemaking authority under the Truth in Lending Act and the Consumer Leasing Act to the Bureau, the Federal Reserve Board retains authority to issue rules for certain motor vehicle dealers. Therefore, the agencies are issuing these notices jointly.
The Regulation M notice is available in the Federal Register here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/10/30/2019-21554/consumer-leasing-regulation-m.
The Regulation Z notice is available in the Federal Register here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/10/30/2019-21557/truth-in-lending-regulation-z.
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Media Contacts:
Federal Reserve Susan Stawick (202) 452-2955
CFPB Marisol Garibay (202) 435-5169
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by regularly identifying and addressing outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations, by making rules more effective, by consistently enforcing federal consumer financial law, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visit consumerfinance.gov.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 18, 2019
MEDIA CONTACT:
Office of Communications
Tel: (202) 435-7170
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) released a report today that found that more than one-in-four consumers with a credit report have at least one debt in collection by third-party debt collectors.
Today’s report, which covers 2004 to 2018, is drawn from the Bureau’s Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), a nationally representative sample of approximately 5 million de-identified credit records maintained by one of the three nationwide credit reporting companies. Close to 900 third-party debt collectors furnished collection tradelines in the CCP. A tradeline is information about a consumer account that is sent, generally on a regular basis, to a credit reporting company. Tradelines contain data such as account balance, payment history, and status of the account.
Today’s findings show that more than one-in-four consumers (28 percent) with a credit report in the CCP in 2018 had at least one third-party collections tradeline on their file. The study also found that more than three-out-of-four third-party collections tradelines are for non-financial debt. More than half (58 percent) of these tradelines are for medical debt and another 20 percent for telecommunications or utilities debt. Positive payment information is generally not furnished for medical or telecommunications debt.
Banks and other original creditors may collect their own debts or hire third-party debt collectors. In some instances, the original creditors may sell the debts to debt buyers. The buyers may try to collect on these debts, or hire other third-party debt collectors. There are approximately 9,330 debt collectors and debt buyers in the United States.
“Market Snapshot: Third-Party Debt Collections Tradeline Reporting” can be found at: https://content.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by regularly identifying and addressing outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations, by making rules more effective, by consistently enforcing federal consumer financial law, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visit consumerfinance.gov.
Fatal Valley Fever Fungus
Washington, DC (Law Firm Newswire) July 5, 2019 – 117 prisoners appealed to the US Supreme Court on Friday in an action challenging California’s failure to move them out of harm’s way during a 2004-2014 valley fever epidemic in Central California. The disease ravaged the population in two facilities, Pleasant Valley State Prison and Avenal State Prison. The lead defendant in the action is former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. His administration did nothing.
In cases that are not fatal, it causes a continuum of adverse health complications starting with impediments to breathing (such as choking, coughing blood and feelings of suffocation), skin lesions, erosion of bones and joints, blindness, and colonization of other organs particularly in the spine and brain. Death is usually by some form of meningitis.
During the epidemic, contraction rates spiked to 600 times the danger level experienced in the rest of the state. These risks were consistently 10-50 times higher than the surrounding geographical area, known as the “hyperendemic zone,” which was already itself 10 times more dangerous than other areas of the state.
Nevertheless, Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration did nothing, affirmatively ignoring the recommendations of its own health experts. As a result, over the course of 10 years, the disease infected thousands of people. Today, the plaintiff pool reports mass health devastation.
Half of the infected inmates have been released and are now private American citizens. These former prisoners have families and otherwise lead a reformed life. They paid their debt to society. But they are saddled for life with management, hospitalizations, medication side effects, and other complications. The state incurred a debt to them and it has not been paid.
Prisoner lawsuits began in 2007 in federal court in Fresno, California. The US Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 33-34 clearly requires officials to protect prisoners from diseases, or upon such failure, to compensate them for the resulting medical expenses and misery. The epidemic here represents a textbook case of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
As a result of their inaction, approximately $100 million of taxpayer money was wasted in treating valley fever cases that could have been prevented. California prison management has repeatedly been cited by the courts for its failure to run a safe and efficient operation, especially in the area of prisoner over-crowding and medical care. The medical system was placed under receivership in 2005 and remains so today.
During World War II, US authorities holding captured German soldiers in Arizona agreed to move them out of harm’s way from the risk of valley fever. At the same time, in 1940, a Stanford scientist published criteria and other safety rules to minimize the disease’s epidemic impact.
That was 80 years ago.
Yet, Schwarzenegger’s administration has successfully argued in this case that its officials did not know that valley fever presented a risk that required it to do anything. Numerous formal warnings, medical alerts, inmate protests, and expert recommendations given to officials from 2004-2007 – and standard common decency – counseled them to implement a battery of precautions, including moving at-risk prisoners out of the Central Valley prisons.
However, as a political matter, all that could be accomplished at the time was for California’s prison construction industry to not build any more beds in the hyperendemic zone. The national mass incarceration effort was still in effect.
Even in spite of direct warnings to Governor Schwarzenegger, he held a press conference in September, 2007 announcing that despite the pending and ongoing epidemic, the state would “go ahead and build.” Schwarzenegger was later quietly overruled, but nothing was done about the prisoners already in harm’s way.
In response to their subsequent lawsuits, California has insisted that without prior specific instructions relating to valley fever from the courts, and despite all the warnings, Schwarzenegger and his officials were entitled to stand idly by and watch the epidemic play out, with the most severe consequences landing on African-Americans.
Their argument is founded in a legal doctrine called “qualified immunity,” which means in practical effect total unaccountability. The plaintiffs’ case was dismissed on this basis without any discovery, without a jury, and without a trial. In any other context, epidemic danger as depicted in the photo above, in which a business, government or other institution subjects a population to dramatically-elevated health risk, would require a trial and undoubtedly result in liability.
In 2012, Cal-Trans ignored a valley fever risk for workers on a Kern County highway project. A jury returned a verdict for four of the victims in the total amount of $12M, or $3M each.
Given the magnitude of Schwarzenegger’s mistakes, the current California government structure is looking to find any loophole to avoid a jury and to avert responsibility for the quantum of harm and personal human wreckage the 2007 administration inflicted on the prison population.
According to their legal position, Schwarzenegger and his officials are entitled to qualified immunity because no court case previously informed them of exactly what to do about valley fever. Yet the Supreme Court had published Helling v McKinney in 1993, directing government officials to take reasonable measures to protect prisoners from significant diseases. The government works around Helling by claiming it was not specific enough.
This is akin to the state arguing that while it was notified as a traffic matter to avoid oncoming cars, it was not specifically warned to avoid oncoming Toyotas. Ergo, it should be held unaccountable for the head-on collision it caused with the inmates’ Camry.
It is a rocky contention at best, but one that has been validated by the Ninth Circuit to date and one that will probably not be corrected because of the Supreme Court’s impossibly busy docket. It only has the capacity to accept 1 percent of the cases presented to it.
For plaintiffs like Theodore Parker, it’s hard news to hear. Serving time in Pleasant Valley in 2010 for theft of a cell phone, he watched as other inmates became seriously ill. He pleaded with authorities to move him out. Those protests were met with pressure on him to abandon the grievance.
Soon he became infected as well, formally diagnosed in 2012 and released in June, 2014. Since then, he, his wife and his daughter have left California for a less controversial life in Portland. His youthful indiscretions are behind him, but he still lives with the disease. Last year alone, he was sick for eight months straight, coughing uncontrollably. Despite the prospect of a lifetime of complications, “the worst part of it was the psychological stress when they refused to move me.”
Despite the continuing challenges with the case, he and the other plaintiffs are resolute. Most filed their petition to the High Court on June 24, 2019 (Case No 18-1590), and if that fails, some like Parker can litigate their own round of appeals back at the 9th Circuit next year. Barring a change of heart by the Ninth Circuit, a second petition to the US Supreme Court will be filed in 2022, lasting another year or two.
If there is no luck in the American courts, the prisoners intend to press their case against Schwarzenegger and California prison officials in the United Nations, through approximately 2026. The argument there is that his administration committed acts of cruelty in violation of Article 5 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In summary, litigation over valley fever was initiated by prisoners twelve years ago, in 2007. By the time all of the victims are completely out of options it will be roughly 2026, or 19 years later.
For American businesses, governmental authorities and other institutions, the message is this. Upon detection of a risk of valley fever, or initiation of any outdoor industry in the hyperendemic zone of California and Arizona, the maximum number of precautions, including exclusion of high-risk persons and environmental suppression, should be implemented immediately and aggressively.
If farm workers, construction personnel, truck drivers, wards, or any other subordinates under a business or institution’s care get infected, the best case scenario is a lawsuit and possibly spend two decades in court, while the worst case scenario is that a lawsuit, and after five years in court, pay $3,000,000 per victim.
Benjamin Pavone, Esq.
Attorney for the Prisoners
619 224 8885
bpavone@cox.net
Contact:
PAVONE & FONNER, LLP
501 West Broadway, Suite 800
San Diego, California, 92101
Phone: 619 224 8885
Fax: 619 224 8886
Email: bpavone@cox.net
Website: https://www.pavone-fonner-llp.com/
As everyone knows, the United States of America has been invaded by hundreds of thousands of people coming through Mexico and entering our country illegally. This sustained influx of illegal aliens has profound consequences on every aspect of our national life—overwhelming our schools, overcrowding our hospitals, draining our welfare system, and causing untold amounts of crime. Gang members, smugglers, human traffickers, and illegal drugs and narcotics of all kinds are pouring across the Southern Border and directly into our communities. Thousands of innocent lives are taken every year as a result of this lawless chaos. It must end NOW!
Mexico’s passive cooperation in allowing this mass incursion constitutes an emergency and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States. Mexico has very strong immigration laws and could easily halt the illegal flow of migrants, including by returning them to their home countries. Additionally, Mexico could quickly and easily stop illegal aliens from coming through its southern border with Guatemala.
For decades, the United States has suffered the severe and dangerous consequences of illegal immigration. Sadly, Mexico has allowed this situation to go on for many years, growing only worse with the passage of time. From a safety, national security, military, economic, and humanitarian standpoint, we cannot allow this grave disaster to continue. The current state of affairs is profoundly unfair to the American taxpayer, who bears the extraordinary financial cost imposed by large-scale illegal migration. Even worse is the terrible and preventable loss of human life. Some of the most deadly and vicious gangs on the planet operate just across our border and terrorize innocent communities.
Mexico must step up and help solve this problem. We welcome people who come to the United States legally, but we cannot allow our laws to be broken and our borders to be violated. For years, Mexico has not treated us fairly—but we are now asserting our rights as a sovereign Nation.
To address the emergency at the Southern Border, I am invoking the authorities granted to me by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Accordingly, starting on June 10, 2019, the United States will impose a 5 percent Tariff on all goods imported from Mexico. If the illegal migration crisis is alleviated through effective actions taken by Mexico, to be determined in our sole discretion and judgment, the Tariffs will be removed. If the crisis persists, however, the Tariffs will be raised to 10 percent on July 1, 2019. Similarly, if Mexico still has not taken action to dramatically reduce or eliminate the number of illegal aliens crossing its territory into the United States, Tariffs will be increased to 15 percent on August 1, 2019, to 20 percent on September 1, 2019, and to 25 percent on October 1, 2019. Tariffs will permanently remain at the 25 percent level unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory. Workers who come to our country through the legal admissions process, including those working on farms, ranches, and in other businesses, will be allowed easy passage.
If Mexico fails to act, Tariffs will remain at the high level, and companies located in Mexico may start moving back to the United States to make their products and goods. Companies that relocate to the United States will not pay the Tariffs or be affected in any way.
Over the years, Mexico has made massive amounts of money in its dealings with the United States, and this includes the tremendous number of jobs leaving our country.
Should Mexico choose not to cooperate on reducing unlawful migration, the sustained imposition of Tariffs will produce a massive return of jobs back to American cities and towns. Remember, our great country has been the “piggy bank” from which everybody wants only to TAKE. The difference is that now we are firmly and forcefully standing up for America’s interests.
We have confidence that Mexico can and will act swiftly to help the United States stop this long-term, dangerous, and deeply unfair problem. The United States has been very good to Mexico for many years. We are now asking that Mexico immediately do its fair share to stop the use of its territory as a conduit for illegal immigration into our country.
The cartels and coyotes are having a greater and greater impact on the Mexican side of our Southern Border. This is a dire threat that must be decisively eliminated. Billions of dollars are made, and countless lives are ruined, by these ruthless and merciless criminal organizations. Mexico must bring law and order to its side of the border.
Democrats in Congress are fully aware of this horrible situation and yet refuse to help in any way, shape, or form. This is a total dereliction of duty. The migrant crisis is a calamity that must now be solved—and can easily be solved—in Congress. Our broken asylum laws, court system, catch-and-release, visa lottery, chain migration, and many other loopholes can all be promptly corrected. When that happens, the measures being announced today can be more readily reduced or removed.
The United States is a great country that can no longer be exploited due to its foolish and irresponsible immigration laws. For the sake of our people, and for the sake of our future, these horrendous laws must be changed now.
At the same time, Mexico cannot allow hundreds of thousands of people to pour over its land and into our country—violating the sovereign territory of the United States. If Mexico does not take decisive measures, it will come at a significant price.
We therefore look forward to, and appreciate, the swift and effective actions that we hope Mexico will immediately install.
As President of the United States, my highest duty is the defense of the country and its citizens. A nation without borders is not a nation at all. I will not stand by and allow our sovereignty to be eroded, our laws to be trampled, or our borders to be disrespected anymore.
Heritage Pharmaceuticals Inc., a generic pharmaceutical company headquartered in Eatontown, New Jersey, was charged for conspiring with its competitors to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers, the Department of Justice announced today.
According to a one-count felony charge filed yesterday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, from about April 2014 until at least December 2015, Heritage participated in a criminal antitrust conspiracy with other companies and individuals engaged in the production and sale of generic pharmaceuticals, a purpose of which was to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers for glyburide, a medicine used to treat diabetes. This charge is the third in the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division’s ongoing investigation; Heritage’s former CEO and its former president were previously charged.
The Antitrust Division also announced a deferred prosecution agreement resolving the charge, under which Heritage admits that it conspired to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers for glyburide. Under the agreement’s terms, Heritage will pay a $225,000 criminal penalty and cooperate fully with the ongoing criminal investigation. The United States will defer prosecuting Heritage for a period of three years to allow the company to comply with the agreement’s terms. The agreement will not be final until accepted by the court.
“American consumers have the right to generic drugs sold at prices set by competition, not collusion,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “It is particularly galling that, when healthcare prices in the United States are already high, certain generic pharmaceutical companies and executives engaged in collusive conduct at the expense of individuals who depend on critical medications. Heritage and its co-conspirators cheated and exploited vulnerable American patients to pad their bottom line.” Delrahim continued, “this resolution — requiring an admission of guilt, a criminal penalty, and cooperation in the ongoing investigation — sends a clear message to generic pharmaceutical companies and their executives that this conduct will not be tolerated. The Division and its law enforcement partners, including the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, will continue to hold companies and individuals accountable for collusion that undermines the integrity of the market for drugs.”
The Antitrust Division entered into the deferred prosecution agreement with Heritage based on the individual facts and circumstances of this case. Among those facts and circumstances, the agreement specifically identifies the company’s substantial and ongoing cooperation with the investigation to date, including its disclosure of information regarding criminal antitrust violations involving drugs other than those identified in the criminal charge and the agreement. According to the agreement, this cooperation has allowed the United States to advance its investigation into criminal antitrust conspiracies among other manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals. Other facts and circumstances identified in the agreement include: Heritage has agreed to resolve all civil claims relating to federal health care programs arising from its conduct; and a conviction (including a guilty plea) would likely result in the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services imposing mandatory exclusion of Heritage from all federal health care programs under 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7 for a period of at least five years, which would result in substantial consequences, including to American consumers. The agreement can ensure that integrity has been restored to Heritage’s operations and preserve its financial viability while preserving the United States’ ability to prosecute it should material breaches occur.
“Price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation promote an environment antithetical to free and open competition in the marketplace. When this occurs, the consumer is not guaranteed the best products at the lowest prices,” said Special Agent in Charge Scott Pierce, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General. “The U.S. Postal Service spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year on health care associated costs, including expenses related to prescription drugs. Along with the Department of Justice and our federal law enforcement partners, the USPS Office of Inspector General will aggressively investigate those who would engage in this type of harmful conduct.”
“The availability of generic medications should be a boon to the public, giving them access to proven drugs at lower prices,” said Michael T. Harpster, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. “When generic pharmaceutical firms engage in price fixing and bid rigging in order to pad their profits, they not only disrupt the free market but do so on the backs of the folks who depend on these drugs. The FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable companies engaged in such illegal and anticompetitive acts.”
In a separate civil resolution, Heritage has agreed to pay $7.1 million to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act related to the price-fixing conspiracy. The government alleged that between 2012 and 2015, Heritage paid and received remuneration through arrangements on price, supply, and allocation of customers with other pharmaceutical manufacturers for certain generic drugs in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute, and that its sale of such drugs resulted in claims submitted to or purchases by federal healthcare programs. The drugs allegedly implicated in this scheme address a wide variety of health conditions, and include hydralazine, used to treat high blood pressure, theophylline, used to treat asthma and other respiratory problems, and glyburide.
“Price fixing of generic drugs harms federal health care programs and the beneficiaries those programs serve,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “The Department of Justice will use every tool at its disposal to hold generic drug manufacturers accountable for wrongdoing.”
“My Office is proud to announce both the civil healthcare fraud settlement with the Civil Division and the deferred prosecution agreement with the Antitrust Division,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain. “Price fixing and market allocation in generic drugs will not be tolerated, especially when such actions artificially inflate prices and negatively impact federal healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid. This resolution with Heritage is an important milestone, and my Office will continue to investigate and pursue illegal conduct regarding generic drugs.”
“Plotting to raise prices on generic medications is illegal and may result in patients’ inability to afford vital medicines,” said Maureen R. Dixon, Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Regional Office of the Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services. “Along with our law enforcement partners at the DOJ, FBI, and Postal-OIG, we will continue to investigate allegations of companies engaging in actions that put the public and the Medicare program at risk.”
The Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits companies from receiving or paying remuneration in return for arranging the sale or purchase of items such as drugs for which payment may be made by a federal health care program. These provisions are designed to ensure that the supply and price of health care items are not compromised by improper financial incentives. This settlement reflects the important role of the False Claims Act to ensure that the United States is fully compensated when it is the victim of kickbacks paid to further anticompetitive conduct.
The criminal charge is the result of an ongoing federal antitrust investigation into price fixing, bid rigging, and other anticompetitive conduct in the generic pharmaceutical industry, which is being conducted by the Antitrust Division with the assistance of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division, the FBI headquarters’ International Corruption Unit, the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Anyone with information on market allocation, price fixing, bid rigging and other anticompetitive conduct related to the generic pharmaceutical industry should contact the Antitrust Division’s Citizen Complaint Center at 1-888-647-3258, visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html or call the FBI’s Philadelphia Division at 215-418-4000.
The civil settlement was handled by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania with support from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, Defense Health Agency Program Integrity, and the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Except for those facts admitted to in the deferred prosecution agreement, the claims resolved by the civil settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, May 31, 2019
Two Chicago Women Held Accountable for Falsely Billing 24-7 for Seven Years in $1.7 Million Workers’ Compensation Fraud
Two Chicago, Illinois, women pleaded guilty for their roles in a scheme to defraud the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) of $1.7 million by falsely billing for services on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis for over seven years.
Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. of the Northern District of Illinois, Special Agent in Charge Andre M. Martin of the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (Postal-OIG), Acting Special Agent in Charge Irene Lindow of the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG) and Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey S. Sallet of the FBI’s Chicago Field Office made the announcement.
Ella Garner, 62, pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud before U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklu of the Northern District of Illinois. On May 24, 2019, Chante Carrothers, 40, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud for her role in the conspiracy. Sentencing for Carrothers has been scheduled for August 16 and for Garner on September 6, both before Judge Bucklu.
As part of their guilty pleas, Carrothers and Garner each admitted that from June 2010 through April 2018, they conspired to defraud OWCP by falsely billing for 24-7 services purportedly provided by Garner to a single person in the home. Garner was not, in fact, providing constant care, the defendants admitted. OWCP paid Carrothers approximately $1.7 million for the bills she submitted for a single patient, purportedly under Garner’s care. Carrothers paid Garner approximately $4,500 per month for her role in the conspiracy, the defendants admitted.
This case was investigated by Postal OIG, DOL-OIG and the FBI. Trial Attorneys Leslie S. Garthwaite and Patrick Mott of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.
The Medicare Fraud Strike Force is part of a joint initiative between the Department of Justice and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country. Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which maintains 14 strike forces operating in 23 districts, has charged nearly 4,000 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $14 billion. In addition, the HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.
Weatherford, TX – Micallef Cigars, LLC – Following the commissioning of our plant in Esteli, Nicaragua, we felt a strong need to have an effective distribution center for Micallef Cigars. With the focus being customer satisfaction and company growth, we recently opened our distribution center in Weatherford, TX. It boasts 17,000 square feet and in addition to being our official distribution center, it also serves as headquarters for the Micallef Management team.
“Our new distribution center is going to take Micallef Cigars to the next stage of our growth as a company. We look forward to continuing to offer our customers the highest level of service.” – Al Micallef
International Association of Real Estate Professionals (IARP) is a multi-purpose platform serving to advance the careers of real estate professionals worldwide. IARP is a one-stop-shop providing educational services, networking opportunities, sales & marketing training, business development tools, client introductions, and exclusive membership resources. The conception of IARP emerged from the notion that real estate professionals needed an association that not only provided useful information but also helped them bring in more clients and close more deals. Ultimately, IARP, helps real estate professionals lay the foundation while providing the building blocks to construct the most successful careers.
LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theiarp/
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