Federal Fraud

There are lies, and then there are lies. Given the subject, some are a way to spare someone’s feelings; others are a lapse in moral turpitude. (One thing is for certain though, lying on a government document is fraud – and a felony.) As...

Court-appointed guardians and conservators are entrusted to protect the personal and financial interests of those they represent. Instead, one Washington guardian betrayed this trust by committing Social Security fraud and other crimes to pocket his clients’ money. Wayne Jerome Houston pleaded guilty in January...

With millions of Americans teleworking to prevent the spread of coronavirus, cybersecurity is a huge issue. Government employees and others use virtual private networks to stay connected to their agencies and falling for a cybersecurity scam can infect the networks of whole organizations. Knowing fraudsters’...

The average U.S. per capita income in 2016 was $57,617 according to the Census; meanwhile, gastroenterologists earned an average of $380,000, per the Medscape Gastroenterologist Compensation Report 2016. Greed is a powerful thing, driving a Texas physician—who presumably earned better than six times a...

With stock performance tumbling in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, companies providing virus treatment or testing might seem like a sure thing to worried investors. Unfortunately, public anxiety is fodder for COVID-19 fraud, including promotions falsely claiming that certain companies’ stocks will soar because...

It takes chutzpah to try and pull off a $2.2 million Medicare fraud scheme; it takes chutzpah and a big old dose of dumb to do it while you’re awaiting sentencing for another series of Medicare crimes. David Brock Lovelace, a Florida marketing company...

A California woman who orchestrated a multi-year identity theft and tax refund fraud scheme was apparently planning to bring her operation even closer to home by stealing her neighbor’s mail. An investigation of Parnian Djafarzadeh by the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Postal Service...

Sometimes committing fraud can lead to bigger things – and not in a good way. A Kentucky man led a quiet life, working and keeping to himself for four decades. He retired in 2009 and in 2010 filed to receive Social Security benefits. In fact,...

For more than a year, a Pennsylvania physician and medical group billed Medicare thousands of dollars for surgically implanting neurostimulator electrodes – a procedure that typically requires an operating room. Instead, they allegedly performed outpatient Medicare fraud by affixing “P-Stim” acupuncture devices behind the...

FEMA’s Sheltering and Temporary Essential Power (STEP) Program is intended to provide disaster relief funding for emergency home repairs. Juli Campbell, the owner of a Puerto Rican contracting company, instead saw it as an opportunity to line her pockets through disaster fraud after Hurricane...