LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Louis J. Cohen, P.C., announces a $15 million settlement of a False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuit against former physician Mohammad Rasekhi, his wife, Sheila Busheri, Southern California Medical Center, Inc. (SCMC), and R & B Medical Group, Inc. dba Universal Diagnostics Laboratories (UDL).

In a case filed in 2018, the whistleblowers alleged that Rasekhi and Busheri employed a dozen different schemes to defraud Medicare, Medi-Cal and Tricare, including paying per-patient kickbacks to marketers to refer patients to SCMC and paying kickbacks to physicians to refer lab tests to UDL, in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute. Further they alleged that Rasekhi referred SCMC's patients for lab tests to the lab he owned, in violation of the Physician Self-Referral Law (known as the Stark Law).

The whistleblowers warned that for more than a decade, Rasekhi and Busheri used the FQHC as their private piggy bank, drawing excessive salaries and charging several SCMC clinics excessive rent at buildings the couple owned.

The United States and California intervened in these three claims, reaching a settlement agreement for payment of $10 million.

The United States and California left it to the whistleblowers and our firm to prosecute the remaining fraud schemes, reaching a separate settlement agreement for payment of $5 million.

The whistleblowers' allegations of fraud were deemed so credible that the Department of Health Care Services took the extraordinary step of suspending Medi-Cal payments to SCMC, UDL and Rasekhi this spring.

Most troubling, the lawsuit alleged that Rasekhi misused free children's vaccines meant only for needy children to inoculate adult Medicare patients, charging patients and government programs for these vaccines.

On October 3, 2024 the Medical Board of California alleged that Rasekhi committed sexual abuse and/or sexual misconduct of one of the whistleblowers and two other SCMC patients. Rasekhi stipulated to the surrender of his medical license.

The settlements resolve the case captioned United States, State of California ex rel. Ferzad Abdi, Julia Butler, Jameese Smith and Karla Solis v. Mohammad Rasekhi, M.D., Sheila Busheri, R & B Medical Group, Inc. DBA Universal Diagnostic laboratories, Southern California Medical Center, Inc., Civil Action No.18-03966 (C.D. Ca.)

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