Imran Shams, 66, of Glendale, Calif., is currently serving a 13-year federal prison sentence for convictions in New York and California federal courts, according to a Feb. 5 news release from the attorney general’s office. His latest sentence will run concurrently with his federal sentence.
His latest sentence comes after he pleaded guilty in March 2020 to billing Medicaid for fraudulent medical testing services, according to the release. He agreed to pay $7 million in restitution. His prosecution is the culmination of a multi-year investigation into Multi-Specialty, a fraudulent medical clinic secretly owned by Mr. Shams. He was banned from billing Medicaid due to a previous healthcare fraud conviction.
Multi-Specialty paid Medicaid recipients a kickback of $20 to $50 to enter the clinic and submit to unnecessary and usually fraudulent evaluations and tests, the release said. These tests were often administered by untrained individuals recruited to dress like healthcare professionals.
Mr. Shams also received millions of dollars in kickbacks to refer patients for diagnostic testing, regardless of necessity, to companies owned by Tea Kaganovich and Ramazi Mitaishvili, both of New York. Both were previously sentenced to one and a half to four and a half years in state prison. They were also prosecuted in a related case in federal court and were ordered to pay more than $18 million to the New York Medicaid Fraud Restitution Fund.
Radiologist Bernard Bentley, MD, of East Hampton, N.Y., received probation for fraudulently billing Medicaid over $8 million, according to the release.
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