Four Southern California men face numerous felony charges in an overbilling scheme uncovered by the California Department of Insurance and the Orange County District Attorney's office. The scheme defrauded more than $36 million from insurance companies.
Jeffrey Campau, 39, of Yorba Linda, Abraham Khorshad, 62, of Beverly Hills and Landen Mirallegro, 38, of Yorba Linda are accused of forming Aspen Medical Resources, LLC, a durable medical equipment (DME) company and renting out a DME machine valued at less than $500 for as much as $17,500 per patient.
If a claim was not paid, the defendants are accused of filing a lien at the Workers Compensation Appeals Board and aggressively collecting on the fraudulent claims. A fourth man, Ryan McCracken, 29, of Rancho Cucamonga, worked as Aspen's collection manager and is accused of negotiating the liens at the Workers Compensation Appeals Board with the carriers. McCracken is accused of receiving a commission on all of his collections. The four defendants are also accused of being informed by various insurance carriers that Aspen was billing for the units incorrectly, but continued to bill the same way and aggressively defended their fraudulent claims, making it more cost-effective for the insurance carriers to pay the fraudulent claims than fight them.
Campau, Khorshad, and Mirallegro are accused of billing under other company names, National DME and Abrexis Orthocare LLC. They are accused of using different addresses and different Employment Tax Identification Numbers for each of these companies in order to mislead the insurance carriers and give the appearance that these companies were different companies and not Aspen.
"This type of fraudulent activity has a dramatic impact on all of us as it creates the need for higher premiums," said Alan Barcelona, president of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) which represents Department of Insurance investigators. "Our investigators at the Department of Insurance have proven they are willing to roll up their sleeves and dig in to these time-consuming, very detailed cases that lead to the arrest, prosecution and sentencing of these criminals."
Campau, Khorshad, and Mirallegro are charged with 22 felony counts of submitting multiple fraudulent claims, 22 felony counts of manufacturing documents in support of a fraudulent claim, one felony count of conspiracy and sentencing enhancements for aggravated white collar crimes for loss over $500,000 and special loss over $3.2 million. If convicted on all counts, they each face a maximum sentence of 53 years in state prison.
McCracken is charged with one felony count of conspiracy and faces a maximum sentence of five years in state prison if convicted.
All four defendants were released on bail. They were arraigned January 22, 2014.
