Dr. David Johnson & Dr. Munir Uwaydah
Medical Board Record (Johnson)—A 20315
Disciplinary Actions (Johnson)—none listed as of 9/27/15
Medical Board Record (Uwaydah)—A 62059
Disciplinary Actions (Uwayday)—License Canceled; Non-completion of Probation; Administrative action taken by other state or federal court
DA: Doctor indicted in $150M insurance fraud not in custody
Los Angeles prosecutors say the doctor who orchestrated a $150 million insurance fraud scheme and allowed his assistant to perform surgeries is not in custody in Germany as they had previously reported.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles district attorney on Tuesday offered no explanation for the discrepancy and wouldn’t say if authorities knew where Dr. Munir Uwaydah was.
A lawyer who previously represented the doctor had disputed that he was in custody, though he wouldn’t reveal how he knew that.
Prosecutors say Uwaydah was the ringleader of a conspiracy that defrauded insurance companies by billing for unnecessary services and medicine, and allowed his physician’s assistant to perform surgeries that left patients scarred for life.
Prosecutors say Uwaydah’s scheme was originally investigated as a possible motive in the killing of a former girlfriend, though the doctor wasn’t charged in that case. (LINK)—10/06/2015
District Attorney News Release — 15 Indicted in $150 Million Insurance Fraud,
Patient Scam Conspiracy
Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey announced today that two criminal Grand Jury
indictments were unsealed charging an orthopedic surgeon, his personal attorney and a cadre of
assistants with operating one of the largest insurance fraud scams in state history.
Dr. Munir Uwaydah, his personal lawyer and his former office manager were among the 15 named in
two indictments totaling 132 felony counts. Uwaydah was arrested Wednesday in Germany and is
awaiting extradition back to the United States.
“Today, we put an end to the illegal activities of an organized criminal enterprise that was responsible
for one of the largest insurance fraud scams in California’s history,” District Attorney Lacey said.
“Although the patient victims sustained physical harm, we who pay higher premiums for health care
suffer economic harm when scams are allowed to continue unchecked.
“With this case we send a clear message that we will continue our mission to protect the community by
pursuing criminals who commit fraud in Los Angeles County,” District Attorney Lacey said.
Deputy District Attorneys Dayan Mathai, Catherine Chon, Karen Nishita and Kennes Ma are
prosecuting the case.
The vast conspiracy outlined in the overt acts included fraudulently billing of more than $150 million to
insurance companies and paying attorneys and marketers up to $10,000 a month each for illegal
patient referrals, known as “capping.”
But the most serious charges outlined in the indictment involve Uwaydah and his staff deceiving nearly
two dozen patients into having surgeries thinking they would be done by Uwaydah. In fact, the surgical
procedures were performed by a physician’s assistant who never attended medical school, prosecutors
said.
The physician’s assistant operated on patients while they were under general anesthesia and without
Uwaydah present in the operating room, the indictment alleges. Prosecutors said in addition all 21
patients sustained lasting scars and many required additional surgeries and suffered physical and
psychological trauma as a result of their experience in Uwaydah’s clinics.
The two Grand Jury indictments unsealed today are the result of a five-year investigation by the Los
Angeles County District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation and the Organized Crime Division.
A total of 102 people testified during two separate Grand Jury proceedings, one in February and the
second in August.
The 57-count indictment, BA425397, charges Uwaydah and 10 other defendants with one count each of
conspiracy; 32 counts each of insurance fraud; 18 counts each of aggravated mayhem; and three counts
each of capping or unlawful client referrals.
Uwaydah, the physician’s assistant and three others are charged with three additional counts of
aggravated mayhem involving patients.
The 57-count indictment alleges all the surgeries were billed to insurance companies as if Uwaydah had
performed the surgeries.
As part of the fraud, the indictment alleges MRI and insurance authorization reports were routinely
altered to justify surgeries, and some surgeries were performed with no medical justification.
The charged billing fraud counts are related to billings for prescription medications, office visits and
surgeries.
In the 75-count indictment, BA435339, Uwaydah’s personal lawyer and three others are charged as coconspirators
in Uwaydah’s criminal enterprise. Charges include conspiracy to commit insurance fraud,
money laundering, illegal patient referrals and filing false tax returns.
His personal attorney also is charged with one count of aggravated mayhem for her role in the alleged
fraudulent surgery of a patient.
If convicted, Uwaydah and 11 others face up to life in state prison.
In BA425397, a 57-count indictment returned on Feb. 25, the 11 defendants are:
• Munir Uwaydah (dob 4/1/66): Mastermind of fraud and owner of Frontline Medical.
Awaiting extradition from Germany.
• Paul Turley (dob 11/12/62) of Granada Hills: A chiropractor and Uwaydah’s business
partner.
• Maria Turley (dob ¾/67) of Granada Hills: Uwaydah’s director of surgery and Paul
Turley’s wife.
• Marisa Schermbeck-Nelson (dob 11/29/76) of Redondo Beach: Uwaydah’s personal
assistant.
• Peter Nelson (dob 8/1/71) of Redondo Beach: Uwaydah’s physician assistant and Marisa
Schermbeck-Nelson’s husband.
• David Johnson (dob 11/7/34) of Corona: Doctor who worked for Frontline.
• Leticia Alvarez Lemus (dob 2/9/77) of Corona: Office manager for Frontline.
• Jeff Stevens (dob 4/4/51) of Playa Del Rey: Uwaydah’s business associate.
• Wendee Luke (dob 7/2/74) of Brea: Uwaydah’s office manager for several of his
companies.
• Kelly Park (dob 10/10/65) of Thousand Oaks: Uwaydah’s office manager and personal
assistant.
• Ron Case (dob 4/11/76) of Camarillo: Billing manager for Frontline.
In BA435339, a 75-count indictment returned on Aug. 26, the four defendants are:
• Tatiana Torres Arnold (dob 1/6/70) of Encino. Uwaydah’s personal attorney who held
various positions for Uwaydah’s companies.
• Terry Luke (dob 1/23/45) of Brea. Held various positions for Uwaydah’s companies and
defendant Wendee Luke’s father.
• Tony Folgar (dob 11/24/57) of Sylmar: Paralegal for a law firm.
• Yolanda Groscost (dob 7/16/66) of Fountain Valley: Owner of YDG Marketing, a
marketing firm.
# (LINK) — 9/15/2015
Judge calls allegations of 21 operations by non-surgeon ‘horrible
A judge Friday denied a request to lower the bail of a doctor accused in what prosecutors have described as one of largest insurance fraud schemes in California history, calling the accusations in the case “horrible.”
L.A. County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy noted that some of the allegations involve a physician’s assistant performing operations on patients under anesthesia.
“Unnecessary surgeries by non-surgeons?” Kennedy said. “That’s pretty shocking stuff.”
Dr. David Johnson is one of 15 people charged in connection with a scheme that “put greed and money before the care and health of hundreds of patients,“ according to a bail motion filed by prosecutors Thursday.
At Friday’s hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dayan Mathai said even after Johnson’s arrest last week, his name was used to bill a patient for treatment purportedly done that day. Johnson’s attorney said the 80-year-old doctor has stage 4 bladder cancer and can’t get adequate treatment in county jail.
Richard Marino, a deputy attorney general representing the state medical board, told the judge that the fraud allegations were highly unusual because they involved actual operations performed on patients rather than simply billing for procedures that never took place.
"Twenty-one patients, at least, underwent surgery,” Marino said, before pointing at Johnson. “But for that man’s medical license, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Prosecutors said the investigation took five years and that the physician’s assistant who performed surgeries, Peter Nelson, had never attended medical school. Patients had been led to believe that the operations would be performed by an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Munir Uwaydah, 49.
Uwaydah and Nelson are among the defendants under indictment in the case. Nelson has pleaded not guilty. Uwaydah has not appeared in court.
Hundreds of patients were cut open and scarred, prosecutors said, and some needed corrective surgery.
The conspirators paid kickbacks to attorneys and middle-men in exchange for illegal patient referrals, prosecutors said. A woman who worked at a marketing firm got $10,000 a month to provide Uwaydah with a certain number of patients, according to prosecutors.
More than $150 million was fraudulently billed to insurance companies, the district attorney’s office alleged, saying those involved hid the money in shell bank accounts. Millions of dollars were transferred to Lebanon and Estonia, according to the bail motion.
Defendant Kelly Soo Park, 49, who authorities say worked as Uwaydah’s office manager and personal assistant, was arrested last week. Investigators found evidence of forged documents on her computer in a folder labeled “Pinochio,” according to the district attorney’s motion.
Two years ago, jurors acquitted Park of strangling 21-year-old Juliana Redding in her Santa Monica home in March 2008.
Prosecutors have previously said that Uwaydah gave payments totaling six figures to Park and her family before the slaying and before Park’s arrest on the murder charge.
Uwaydah – who wasn’t charged in Redding’s death and has denied any wrongdoing – fled to Lebanon when he became a person of interest in the murder case, according to the bail motion, which said prosecutors looked into the fraud as a possible motive for the killing.
During Park’s murder trial, a prosecutor told jurors that Redding was killed five days after her father broke off business negotiations with her ex-boyfriend, Uwaydah.
In court Friday, Park cried during the hearing and sometimes smiled at people in the audience.
Prosecutors also filed a motion this week asking a judge to remove an attorney representing one defendant, Terry Luke, who is accused of controlling some of the bank accounts used in the alleged scheme. Prosecutors noted that the defense attorney, Alan Jackson, previously worked for the district attorney’s office and played a prominent role in the early stages of the murder case against Park.
Prosecutors argued that Jackson had a conflict of interest and that he and his firm should be excluded from the case. The motion said that during his work on the case as a prosecutor, Jackson had a D.A. investigator search more than 10 banks and 100 bank accounts, unearthing key evidence of fraud against some of the defendants, including his client.
During a court hearing last week, Jackson denied he had a conflict of interest. Kennedy has yet to rule on the motion. (LINK) — 9/25/2015
Prosecutors reveal payments to suspect in model’s killing
The case against a woman charged with murdering an aspiring model in Santa Monica took an intriguing turn Friday, when prosecutors alleged that the suspect received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a troubled physician who was in a foundering business deal with the victim’s father.Kelly Soo Park, 44, was paid $250,000 three weeks before the grisly 2008 killing of Juliana Redding and Park’s family received another payment of $113,400 in the days before her arrest June 18, prosecutors said in a motion filed Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The money, they said, came from Park’s employer, Dr. Munir Uwaydah, a Marina del Rey doctor with a checkered past. Law enforcement authorities have declined to discuss the financial transactions and what role, if any, they believe Uwaydah played in the killing.Medical and court records indicate that Uwaydah was convicted in 2005 of defrauding a medical supply company of nearly $1 million and is being investigated for possibly filing millions of dollars in fraudulent insurance claims. Last year, state authorities sought to revoke his medical license for —among other allegations — allowing a physician assistant to begin a surgical procedure while he was not in the room.Uwaydah’s attorney, Henry Fenton, said his client had nothing to do with the murder. Fenton said he was unaware of any of the allegations about the payment to Park or medical fraud. According to the attorney, Uwaydah was traveling outside the country and unreachable.Redding’s March 15, 2008, slaying set off shockwaves in the affluent neighborhood around Santa Monica Boulevard and Centinela Avenue, where rent for one-bedroom apartments can exceed $2,000 a month. The 21-year-old Arizona native moved to Los Angeles to pursue work as an actress and model after she was featured in a popular men’s magazine.
Along with modeling jobs, she worked at a Venice tapas bar. Police were dispatched to her condo after her mother called from Tucson to report that her daughter had not been returning phone calls. Redding’s body showed signs of physical assault.
On Friday, prosecutors detailed the transfer of funds as part of a request that the judge in the case raise Park’s bail to $5 million from $1 million. Judge Keith Schwartz is expected to rule on the increased bail at a hearing Monday morning.
Although authorities have remained tightlipped on how Park was linked to Redding since they arrested the woman in Camarillo, they provided a hint to the connection in the motion for higher bail. Redding’s father, Greg Redding, was “involved in a business negotiation with Dr. Uwaydah that fell apart … five days before the murder charged in this case,” Santa Monica Det. Karen Thompson, the investigating officer in the case, wrote in the bail motion.
Thompson said Park was suspected of being involved in “medical fraud.” In previous court filings, prosecutors reiterated Park’s involvement in “ongoing, complex, multi-layer medical fraud” and said they were aware that the Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Co. was withholding “several million dollars in payment on medical claims” submitted from Uwaydah’s medical practice.
Santa Monica police referred inquiries from The Times to the district attorney’s office, saying only that they were continuing to investigate the case and were possibly tracking other suspects. The lead prosecutor in the case and Gregory Redding did not return calls seeking comment.
As Uwaydah’s employee, Park had received a monthly salary of $10,000 at least since 2008 in addition to the two lump-sum payments the doctor allegedly made, according to Thompson. The investigator added that records from Uwaydah’s office showed he made a third payment of an unknown amount to a South Korean bank account in Park’s name days before she was arrested.
Park’s roommate, Ronnie Wayne Case, also was arrested by Santa Monica detectives, but the district attorney’s office declined to charge the 34-year-old, pending further investigation. (LINK) — 6/26/2010
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