New York – Keep those lips zipped, comrade — and help us rip off Uncle Sam for $72 million!
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A Brooklyn medical office used a Soviet-era propaganda poster to tell Russian-immigrant patients to keep quiet about kickbacks they were getting for letting doctors submit thousands of bogus Medicare claims in their names, federal prosecutors revealed yesterday.
“Don’t gossip!” warned the Russian-language poster that prominently hung in the “kickback room” of the Bay Medical office on Bay Parkway — where patients literally lined up for illegal payoffs of a couple of a hundred dollars or so each.
But not everyone kept their mouths shut.
Federal authorities got several people to rat out the alleged scam and yesterday arrested dozens of doctors, employees and patients of Bay Medical and other Medicare “mills” elsewhere in Brooklyn and in Miami, Detroit, Houston and Baton Rouge, La.
It is the largest Medicare-fraud prosecution ever, totaling $251 million in funds swindled from the federal health-insurance program.
Featuring a large drawing of a woman holding an index finger to her lips, the not-so-helpful poster reads: “Keep your eyes open. These days even the walls have ears. Chatter and gossip go hand in hand with treason.”
Those threats helped Bay Medical steal $72 million by submitting fraudulent claims, prosecutors said.
Among those busted was 82-year-old Brooklyn resident Valentina Mushinskaya, who allegedly accepted a $1,500 kickback in exchange for allowing doctors to submit her Medicare account for 3,774 medical services over six years.
Prosecutors said her doctors at Solstice Wellness Center in Rockaway Park fraudulently billed Medicare $259,902 and ended up being reimbursed $141,161 for those services, which the Ukrainian immigrant Mushinskaya never received.
After Mushinskaya was released yesterday on $35,000 bond, her nephew proclaimed she had no idea a scam was being perpetrated in her name — and griped that authorities had handcuffed the diabetic woman when they arrested her.
“She feels ashamed, absolutely shocked,” Vladimir Olshanski said as his aunt hobbled along with a cane as she was swarmed by reporters at Brooklyn federal court.
Seven other elderly patients of Solstice also were charged.
Announcing the crackdown yesterday, Brooklyn US Attorney Loretta Lynch said, “Those who would defraud these programs not only hurt some of the most needy and vulnerable but also indirectly impact all Americans.”
Stupid Stupid Stupid!!
In this day and age to do such crimes on such a open way??!!
Stupid Stupid Stupid!!!
get ’em, these bastards hurt all of us, especially in these tough times .
why don’t they get exchanged for Pollard.
This is preposterous!!! these guys come in to our country and not only do they get free medicare, food stamps, welfare, section 8 etc..etc.. these greedy bastards steal more and more!!!! I am mad!!!
These are not victimless crimes. Millions of taxpayer dollars have allegedly been stolen.
why are we so surprised at this news? is this something new? do some of you (those of you who were protesting with the JDL or SSSJ in the 1970’s in front of the soviet mission on Lexington Ave) actually believed that the Russkies came to this country because of ” religious persecution” ? are you nuts altogether? They came here for the”gengeei” (money) and the the medicaid,food stamps,wlefare and SSi scams. Like one russian once said doing 10 years in prison here,is like a piece of cake, compared to doing 10 years in the Gulag. wake up people! these lowlifes(not all em) RAPED this country. they played on our sympathies thru crockadile tears. they came here the same way as the Cubans did back decades ago, when Castro emptied his jails and sent us the “Boat people” together with all his other refugees.
the russians did the same,along with the supposed”jewish” people the trash also came along with them. And the main reason was for personal financial gain. The russians invented the scam. There are very few scams that a russian doesnt know about. This country is to them like a big party,it’s like taking candy from a baby. Just read the papers,there isnt a medicaid scam without em.
I just love the way the goverment lumps together multiple scams, and makes it sound that there was a single group of 94 responsible for the $250M, when in fact these are multiple unassociated groups.
They did the dame thing in the Deweck case, when the only thing in common was the same informer.
The reason they do it is FRAUD, in order to tarnish the people in the eyes of the future jury. Shame on them!
Well I m not so excited like the posters above, “remember” rubashkin rate??? I do. I don’t trust the media and the corrupted A G …
It’s really pathetic to say Russians do this and Russians do that. There are theives in every segment of society. The problem is the gov. themselves, giving handouts for illegals and too many programs for the “poor” and they do this all by making the middle class poor through their theivery called taxes.
These pigs avail themselves of every scam put to them.
They come to this country a d want to get even with the world for oppresing them on our account.
Yeah, she didn’t know, why did she think she was being paid.
They should take away her madicare/medicaid
OK – if these were elderly Russian immigrants then probably the majority of them are Jews. So – where are the asifas and the ads asking for pidyon shivuyim contributions and the indignation by frum organizations? A Yid is a yid – no matter if there’s no black hat or yeshiva education or the person speaks Russian instead of Yinglish. Or is the indignation only the result of not wanting “our own” to be punished, and the product of a superb publicity campaign.
We’re waiting. Let’s see how far our definition of “Yid” actually reaches. (Not very far, if some of the posters above are any proof.)
Before you start accusing Russian-speaking Jews of stuff, look at yourselves my dear litivsh and chassidish friends, v’hameyvin yavin…