US authorities have sentenced Texas residents Leah Hagen and Michael Hagen to 151 months in prison for a $27 million fraud scheme involving bribes and kickbacks.
The Hagens owned and operated durable medical equipment (DME) companies Metro DME Supply LLC and Ortho Pain Solutions LLC. During 2016-19, they paid kickbacks and bribes to a call center in the Philippines in order to obtain signed doctors’ orders for DME. They used the fake or unnecessary DME orders to submit false Medicare claims of over $59 million, of which they were able to obtain over $27 million. The Hagens then transferred large sums of the illicit funds overseas to launder them.
In July 2021, US authorities had charged the Hagens with conspiracy to defraud the US to pay and receive health care kickbacks and conspiracy to launder money. In addition to serving their prison sentence, the Hagens will have to pay $27,104,359 in restitution.
Source: US Department of Justice
