Abdella Ahmad Tounisi Arrested by FBI's Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force on Charge of Supporting Terrorism Overseas

An alleged attempt by an Aurora, Illinois man to travel to Syria in order to join a jihadist militant group operating inside Syria led to his arrest Friday evening. The arrest was announced by Cory B. Nelson, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Gary S. Shapiro, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, 18, a U.S. citizen, was taken into custody without incident at O’Hare International Airport by members of the Chicago FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force as he attempted to board a flight destined for Istanbul, Turkey. He was charged in a criminal complaint filed today in U.S. District Court with one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, a felony offense. Tounisi appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel G. Martin and was ordered held until his next court appearance, which is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on April 23, 2013.

In making the announcement, Mr. Nelson stated that the investigation that culminated in Tounisi’s arrest began in 2012 and that there is no connection between this case and the events that occurred over the last several days in Boston.

The complaint states that Tounisi is a close friend of Adel Daoud, an individual arrested in September 2012 for attempting to detonate a bomb outside a Chicago bar and that Tounisi and Daoud appeared to share an interest in violent jihad. While Tounisi allegedly discussed attack techniques and targets prior to Daoud’s arrest, Tounisi did not participate in Daoud’s attempted attack.

According to the complaint, from January to April 2013, Tounisi conducted online research related to overseas travel and violent jihad, focusing specifically on Syria and the Jabhat al Nusrah terrorist group. Jabhat al Nusrah is listed by the U.S. Department of State as an alias for al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a designated foreign terrorist organization. The complaint alleges that Tounisi searched online for information about travel from Chicago to Syria, obtained a new passport, and, beginning in late March 2013, made online contact with an individual Tounisi believed to be a recruiter for Jabhat al Nusrah. That individual was in fact an FBI employee acting in an online undercover capacity. The complaint further alleges that Tounisi and the undercover employee exchanged a series of e-mails in which Tounisi shared his plan to get to Syria by way of Turkey, as well as his willingness to die for the cause. During the exchanges, Tounisi also sought advice from the undercover employee on travel from Istanbul to the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which lies near the border of Turkey and Syria.

The complaint states that on April 10, Tounisi purchased an airline ticket for a flight from Chicago to Istanbul and on April 18, the undercover employee provided Tounisi with a bus ticket for travel from Istanbul to Gaziantep. Tounisi arrived at O’Hare International Airport’s international terminal Friday evening, and after passing through airport security, he was arrested.

If convicted of the charge filed against him, Tounisi faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison.

The JTTF is composed of special agents of the FBI, officers of the Chicago Police Department, and representatives from an additional 20 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The Justice Department’s National Security Division assisted in the investigation.

Mr. Nelson expressed his gratitude to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the significant support provided by its officers during the arrest of Tounisi.

The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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"Gangsters of Boston" Discussed by Author George Hassett on Crime Beat Radio

April 25th, George Hassett will discuss his fascinating book, Gangsters of Boston on Crime Beat Radio.

Crime Beat is a weekly hour-long radio program that airs every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST., on the Artist First World Radio Network at artistfirst.com/crimebeat.

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@TheMobMuseum to Host "Protectors of the State - A Conversation with 3 Former Govenors"

On Thursday, April 25 at 6:30 p.m., The Mob Museum, The National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, will host “Protectors of the State – A Conversation with Three Former Governors,” in its historic courtroom. Featuring a panel discussion with former Nevada Governors Bob List, Senator Richard Bryan and Bob Miller, the event will be moderated by journalist and author Jack Sheehan. This Courtroom Conversation’s discussion is part of the Museum’s ongoing commitment to presenting informative and thought-provoking programming to the community. The event is brought to the Museum through generous contributions from Mike Sloan, Rogich Communications Group and Robin and Danny Greenspun.

Beyond its borders, perceptions of Nevada have been challenged because of its libertarian social norms, times of economic hardship, and the presence of organized crime. “Protectors of the State” will feature three of Nevada’s great leaders who navigated tumultuous waters while continuing to modernize the State and defend its image to the outside. In addition, the discussion will include stories from Gov. Miller’s recently released book, “Son of a Gambling Man.” A book signing with Gov. Miller will follow the discussion.

Doors will open at 6 p.m. with a reception including light fare and refreshments. The program will begin promptly at 6:30 p.m. in The Mob Museum’s historic courtroom. Following the moderator-led discussion among the panel, audience members will have a chance to ask questions. The program will conclude by 8 p.m. and will be followed by Gov. Miller’s book signing.

Tickets for the April 25 event are $10 for members and $19.95 for non-members and include complimentary libation and light fare. To make reservations, please call (702) 229-2734 or visit http://themobmuseum.org/plan-your-visit/upcoming-events.

Bob List served as the 24th Governor of Nevada from 1979 to 1983. Previously, he served as the Carson City District Attorney and the Nevada Attorney General. Currently, List practices law in Las Vegas with the law firm Kolesar & Leatham, Chtd. He was the last Governor to serve from outside Clark County until Jim Gibbons' election.

A native Nevadan, Senator Richard Bryan won his first statewide election as Nevada’s Attorney General where he played a major role in successfully defending Nevada’s gaming regulatory structure in the Federal Courts. In 1982, he was elected to the first of two terms as Governor. In 1988 he was elected to the first of two terms in the U.S. Senate. He was the only Senate member to simultaneously serve on these U.S. Senate Committees: Finance; Commerce, Science and Transportation; and Banks, Housing and Urban Affairs.

When Bob Miller arrived in Las Vegas as a boy, it was a small, dusty city—a far cry from the glamorous, exciting place it is today. His father, Ross Miller, had operated on both sides of the law on some of the meaner streets of industrial Chicago, and brought his family to Las Vegas so he could create a legitimate career out of gaming. As Bob grew up, so did Vegas; the city’s population doubled every decade during the 1900’s and Las Vegas was now a “town” of some two million. He went on to become Nevada’s longest serving governor, holding office from 1989 to 1999. Bob’s new book, “Son of a Gambling Man,” is a warm family memoir, with just a little bit of  “The Godfather” and “Casino” thrown in for spice, making it a unique and memorable story.

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Ricin Letter Sent to The President

A second letter containing a granular substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin was received at an offsite mail screening facility. The envelope, addressed to the President, was immediately quarantined by U.S. Secret Service personnel, and a coordinated investigation with the FBI was initiated. It is important to note that operations at the White House have not been affected as a result of the investigation.

Additionally, filters at a second government mail screening facility preliminarily tested positive for ricin this morning. Mail from that facility is being tested.

Any time suspicious powder is located in a mail facility, field tests are conducted. The field and other preliminary tests can produce inconsistent results. Any time field tests indicate the possibility of a biological agent, the material is sent to an accredited laboratory for further analysis. Only a full analysis performed at an accredited laboratory can determine the presence of a biological agent such as ricin. Those tests are currently being conducted and generally take 24 to 48 hours.

The investigation into these letters remains ongoing, and more letters may still be received. There is no indication of a connection to the attack in Boston.

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Hospital Owner, Executive, and Four Doctors, from Chicago’s Sacred Heart, Arrested in Alleged Medicare Referral Kickback Conspiracy

The owner and another senior executive of Sacred Heart Hospital and four physicians affiliated with the west side facility were arrested today for allegedly conspiring to pay and receive illegal kickbacks, including more than $225,000 in cash, along with other forms of payment, in exchange for the referral of patients insured by Medicare and Medicaid to the hospital, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Gary S. Shapiro.

Agents from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General today also began executing search and seizure warrants in connection with an ongoing investigation of alleged Medicare and Medicaid fraud schemes at the hospital involving emergency room evaluation, testing, and observation services that were not medically necessary, as well as medically unnecessary sedation, intubation, and tracheotomy procedures performed on patients. Approximately $2 million in Medicare reimbursement payments was seized today from various bank accounts.

Arrested were Edward J. Novak, 58, of Park Ridge, Sacred Heart’s owner and chief executive officer since the late 1990s; Roy M. Payawal, 64, of Burr Ridge, executive vice president and chief financial officer since the early 2000s; and Drs. Venkateswara R. “V.R.” Kuchipudi, 66, of Oak Brook, Percy Conrad May, Jr., 75, of Chicago, Subir Maitra, 73, of Chicago, and Shanin Moshiri, 57, of Chicago.

Sacred Heart Hospital is a 119-bed acute care facility located at 3240 West Franklin Blvd. in Chicago. Approximately 40 in-patients were in the hospital this morning, and representatives of the HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) were on site and coordinating with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to ensure continuity of patient care.

“These charges and the affidavit’s other allegations outline a kickback conspiracy to bribe doctors to refer patients to Sacred Heart where they would be treated in in an environment in which the quality of care and appropriate medical analysis were less important than maximizing the numbers of patients funneled into the hospital,” said Gary S. Shapiro, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

“The payment of kickbacks or bribes in exchange for the referral of Medicare or Medicaid patients, regardless of the form in which they are paid, is a crime,” said Lamont Pugh, III, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Region of HHS-OIG. “The Office of Inspector General will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to aggressively investigate alleged illegal patient referral schemes and hold accountable those who seek to exploit vulnerable patients and the Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

“Today’s arrests demonstrate our commitment to enforcing the laws intended to prevent abuses of the Medicare and Medicaid programs and to preserve the ability of those programs to provide appropriate medical services to the elderly and the needy,” said Cory B. Nelson, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of investigation.

The defendants were charged in a complaint that was filed yesterday and unsealed today after the arrests. All six defendants were scheduled to appear beginning at 3 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Martin in Federal Court.

Kickback Conspiracy

A 90-page affidavit in support of the criminal complaint and search and seizure warrants states that former Sacred Heart Physician A began cooperating in the investigation in October 2011, and Administrator A and Administrator B began assisting in January 2013 and February 2012, respectively. Each of them made consensual recordings of meetings and telephone conversations with other executives, administrators, physicians, and employees that are described in the affidavit.

According to the complaint—at Novak’s direction and with his approval and Payawal’s assistance—Sacred Heart implemented a scheme to pay kickbacks to physicians in return or referrals of Medicare and Medicaid patients. Novak and Payawal allegedly tried to conceal the scheme by masking payments as fictitious rental payments; paying the salaries of physicians’ employees; providing physicians ghost contracts for duties without any real responsibilities; creating alternative billing arrangements; and purporting to pay physicians to supervise and teach non-existent medical students.

In a conversation that Administrator A recorded on February 28, 2013, Novak and Payawal allegedly identified Drs. Moshiri, Maitra and May as physicians receiving regular kickback payments who Administrator A should pay.

Between January 2010 and February 2013, May allegedly received $74,000 in the form of 37 checks, for $2,000 each, disguised as “rental payments”; Moshiri, a podiatrist, allegedly received $86,000 in 38 checks pursuant to a purported contract to teach podiatry students; and Maitra allegedly received $68,000 in 34 checks pursuant to a purported teaching contract—and the $228,000 total in alleged kickbacks were all in exchange for their referral of patients to Sacred Heart, the charges allege.

In a recorded conversation last month, Maitra allegedly explained to Administrator A that he used to make Novak “so much money” performing almost daily penile implant procedures on patients, but that he no longer performed as many of those procedures because Medicare had decreased its rates of reimbursement for the procedure. Maitra did not comment on whether the patient need for the procedure had somehow changed, according to the affidavit.

Regarding Dr. Kuchipudi, Administrator A told agents that he was one of Sacred Heart’s most prolific patient referral sources and, according to Physician A, was known within the hospital as the “king of nursing homes.” According to Administrator A, Sacred Heart paid Kuchipudi for Medicare patient referrals in two ways: first, by paying most of the salaries of a physician’s assistant and a registered nurse who were effectively employed by Kuchipudi, and second, by paying Physician B for treating Kuchipudi’s patients at Sacred Heart, despite the fact that Kuchipudi, and not the hospital, billed insurers for the services Physician B provided to those patients. These arrangements allegedly benefited Kuchipudi as a result of the hospital absorbing employee salary costs that Kuchipudi would normally have to pay himself.

Tracheotomy Procedures

The investigation is also probing claims that Sacred Heart Physician D, a pulmonologist, allegedly performs a high number of unnecessary intubations and prolongs them by directing heavy sedation of his patients, often resulting in tracheotomies being performed by Sacred Heart surgeons that may not have been medically necessary. Administrator A told agents that during a lunch with Novak and Payawal in December 2012, they both explained that tracheotomy cases provide substantial insurance reimbursement income for the hospital. On March 1, 2013, Administrator A recorded Novak stating that tracheotomies are Sacred Heart’s “biggest money maker” and the hospital can make $160,000 for a tracheotomy if the patient stays 27 days. On March 7, 2013, the Intensive Care Unit case manager told Administrator A that she must often “stretch” a tracheotomy patient’s stay to 28 days to maximize Medicare reimbursements “to make Novak happy.”

Novak’s Business Interests

According to the affidavit, Novak has direct or indirect ownership interest in various related entities, including Superior Home Health LLC, a home health care company; the Golden L.I.G.H.T. clinics, which are family practice/internal medicine clinics operated as divisions as Sacred Heart; the Chen Medical center; the Garfield Kidney Center LLC, an outpatient dialysis center; and the Bentley Insurance Group, a medical malpractice insurance company. Novak also owns various real estate and corporate management holding companies, and prior to June 2012, he operated the Chicago R.E.A.C.H Foundation, a purported non-profit, senior citizen program financed by the state of Illinois.

In a series of recorded conversations over the last two months, Payawal told Administrator A that a substantial part of Sacred Heart’s revenue comes from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements and explained various ways in which revenue generated from the hospital is transferred to and among Novak’s other corporate interests.

Conspiracy to violate the federal anti-kickback statute carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine and restitution is mandatory. If convicted, the court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joel Hammerman, Terra Reynolds, and Ryan Hedges.

The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The case falls under the umbrella of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which expanded operations to Chicago in February 2011, and is part of the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), a joint initiative announced in May 2009 between the Justice Department and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country. More than five dozen defendants have been charged in health care fraud cases since the strike force began operating in Chicago.

To report health care fraud to learn more about the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), go to www.stopmedicarefraud.gov.

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