You’ve probably read about IRS whistleblowers cashing in for reporting suspected tax fraud. It may seem to be anew development, but IRS whistleblowing incentives started in 1867! Still, big changes in 2006 raised the stakes materially, adding new Section 7623(b). Under it, awards to whistleblowers are no longer discretionary. Now, the whistleblower “shall” receive 15 to 30 percent of the collected proceeds. [...]

Company Maintained Specialized Sales Force to Market Drug for Off Label Purposes; Targeted Elderly Dementia Patients in Nursing Homes Global Health Care Company Abbott Laboratories Inc. has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.5 billion to resolve its criminal and civil liability arising from the company’s unlawful promotion of the prescription drug Depakote for uses [...]

KNOXVILLE — A physicians practice group has agreed to pay $4.36 million to resolve allegations it violated federal law while submitting false claims for medical services. The settlement involves Apex Medical Group, doing business as Nephrology Consultants, and some affiliated dialysis centers in Knoxville area counties. According to an announcement today from the U.S. Attorney’s [...]

Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today that a nationwide takedown by Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in seven cities has resulted in charges against 107 individuals, including doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in Medicare fraud schemes involving approximately $452 million [...]

The clerk who blew the whistle on a Sacramento Public Library Authority kickback scheme that sent three people to prison settled her retaliation lawsuit against the agency for $343,000, it was disclosed Monday. Diane Boerman last month reached a confidential settlement in her case against the library, but the details were not disclosed until agency [...]

The United States has intervened in a lawsuit against Japanese company, Toyo Ink Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and its United States subsidiaries: Toyo Ink International Corp ., located in New York; Toyo Ink America LLC, located in Illinois; and Toyo Ink Manufacturing America LLC, located in New Jersey, the Justice Department announced today.   Toyo Ink, [...]

ATK Launch Systems Inc. has agreed to a $36,967,160 settlement with the United States to resolve allegations that ATK sold dangerous and defective illumination flares to the Army and the Air Force.   According to the government’s allegations, from 2000 to 2006, ATK delivered LUU-2 and LUU-19 illuminating para-flares to the Defense Department.   These flares, which burn in [...]

 Walgreens, an Illinois-based corporation operating a national retail pharmacy chain, has paid the United States and participating states $7.9 million to resolve allegations that Walgreens violated the False Claims Act, the Justice Department announced today. The settlement resolves allegations that Walgreens offered illegal inducements to beneficiaries of government health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE [...]

A Detroit-area patient recruiter pleaded guilty today for his participation in a Medicare fraud scheme, announced the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).    Daron Elder, 28, of Southfield, Mich., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Tarnow in the Eastern District of Michigan to one count [...]

A loan officer for a Florida mortgage company pleaded guilty late yesterday in the Southern District of Florida to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in a mortgage fraud scheme, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern [...]