The Chicago Syndicate
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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Mafia Documentary Video on Genovese Crime Family


Mafia Documentary Video on Genovese Crime Family



Dike Ajiri, Mobile Doctors’ Chicago CEO, and Doctor Banio Koroma Arrested on Federal Health Care Fraud Charges

The chief executive officer of Chicago-based Mobile Doctors, which manages physicians who make house calls in six states, and one of its physicians in Chicago were arrested on federal health care fraud charges. At the same time, federal agents executed search warrants at Mobile Doctors’ offices in Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis, as well as warrants to seize up to $2.568 million in alleged fraud proceeds from various bank accounts. The charges allege a scheme to fraudulently increase (also known as “upcoding”) Medicare bills for in-home patient visits that Mobile Doctors falsely claimed were more complicated and longer than they actually were. The charges also allege that Mobile Doctors’ physicians falsely certified that patients were confined to their homes, enabling home health care agencies to claim fees for additional services for patients who were not actually qualified to receive them.

Agents from the FBI, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, and other law enforcement agencies executed the arrest, search, and seizure warrants in connection with the charges and also a broader ongoing investigation that includes allegedly illegal billing practices for medically unnecessary tests and services not performed by a physician.

Arrested were Dike Ajiri, 42, of Wilmette, CEO of Mobile Doctors, which he has effectively owned since 1996, and Banio Koroma, 63, of Tinley Park, a physician who has worked for Mobile Doctors since approximately 2007. Mobile Doctors, located at 3319 N. Elston Ave., in Chicago, arranges patient home visits and contracts with doctors who perform the visits. The physicians assign their rights to bill and collect payment to Mobile Doctors in return for being paid directly by the company. Mobile Doctors’ website claims that its associated physicians have made more than 500,000 house calls since its inception. In addition to Chicago, the company has branches in Detroit and Flint, Michigan; San Antonio and Austin, Texas; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Phoenix; and St. Louis.

Ajiri was charged with health care fraud, and Koroma was charged with making false statements relating to health care benefits in a criminal complaint that was filed yesterday and unsealed today after the arrests. Both were scheduled to appear at 3 p.m. today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Rowland in U.S. District Court.

The arrests and charges were announced by Gary S. Shapiro, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Robert J. Shields, Jr., Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Lamont Pugh, III, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Regional Office of the HHS-OIG. The Railroad Retirement Board Office of Inspector General is also participating in the investigation.

According to a 75-page affidavit in support of the arrest, search, and seizure warrants, agents have interviewed several current and more than 25 former employees of Mobile Doctors, including some who reported allegedly fraudulent billing practices to Medicare before they were contacted by agents. Investigators have also reviewed e-mails and documents, claims data and patient files and have conducted interviews with patients of Mobile Doctors and their primary care physicians, whose statements contradict Mobile Doctors’ billing and patient records.

Mobile Doctors physicians do not perform tests such as echocardiograms but do order such tests, which are done on Mobile Doctors’ patients by employees of In Home Diagnostics, doing business as Ultrasound2You. According to Medicare records, Ajiri is a minority partner in In Home Diagnostics, which is located in the same building as Mobile Doctors, and Mobile Doctors bills the echocardiograms so that they appear to have been done by Mobile Doctors’ physicians.

The complaint affidavit states that Ajiri signed a personal financial statement on December 31, 2012, stating that he received $1.5 million in annual partnership income from a corporate entity, Mobile Doctors LLC, which has a complex ownership structure involving Ajiri and, over time, one or both of his parents. Between 2008 and January 2013, bank records show that approximately $4.365 million was transferred from Mobile Doctors to an account in the name of Ajiri and his wife.

Upcoding Patient Visits

According to interviews with former and current Mobile Doctors physicians, branch managers, clinical coordinators, employees, and patients, a typical visit that a Mobile Doctors physician has with an established patient lasts 10 to 30 minutes and is routine in nature. In contrast to those interviews, claims data shows that from 2006 through February 2013, approximately 99 percent of all established-patient visits by Mobile Doctors physicians were billed to Medicare using either of the two highest codes indicating the visits involved medical decision-making of moderate to high complexity, detailed or comprehensive interval histories or medical examinations, and/or visits that typically last at least 40 minutes.

In 2009 in Chicago, the local Medicare fee for a visit using the second-highest home visit code was approximately $122.82, while the fee for the highest code was approximately $171.25. According to a review of claims data for Railroad Retirement Board patients, every single established-patient visit Mobile Doctors billed to Medicare between January 2007 and June 2008 used the highest fee code. Between January 2007 and November 2012, approximately 93 percent of such visits were billed using the highest fee code.

The former manager of Mobile Doctors’ Chicago branch until she was terminated in 2008 told agents that Ajiri told her that the second-highest fee code was the default code for a patient visit so that it would be worth the gas and time spent. The manager said Ajiri told physicians, “I don’t pay for ones or twos,” referring to the two lower of the four applicable fee codes. At the end of one day, she said she saw Ajiri in his office “automatically” altering the billing codes and marking visits at the highest fee level on patient records submitted by physicians and assistants who accompanied them on home visits. A physician told agents that in late 2007, Ajiri did not respond to his concerns about Mobile Doctors’ billing practices and instead told the doctor that he could earn more money if he would order more tests such as electrocardiograms, according to the affidavit.

The complaint alleges that the vast majority of payments made on established-patient visit claims using the highest fee code were the result of fraudulent upcoding. From 2006 through 2012, Mobile Doctors received approximately $21.4 million in payments on claims using the second-highest code and approximately $12.6 million in Medicare payments on claims using the highest fee code.

Falsely Certifying Patients as Confined to Their Homes

The charges further allege that Mobile Doctors physicians, including Koroma, falsely certified patients as confined to their homes and requiring home health services when they were not home-bound and did not require such care. By referring patients to home health agencies that did not warrant Medicare payments, Mobile Doctors received more referrals from those agencies for services provided by its physicians. According to Medicare data, from August 2010 through July 2013, more than 200 home health agencies submitted Medicare claims for services allegedly rendered to patients for whom Koroma was identified as the referring physician. These home health agencies have been paid more than $10 million for services listing Koroma as the referring physician.

Between January 2006 and March 2013, Mobile Doctors physicians have certified or recertified for 60-day periods approximately 15,598 patients as confined to their homes and requiring home health services a total of approximately 83,133 times, many of which were allegedly false. Approximately 6,057 of these certifications were attributed since August 2007 to Koroma, with Mobile Doctors billing Medicare for approximately 17,439 patient visits he made during that time, more than any other Mobile Doctors physician.

The health care fraud count against Ajiri carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine and restitution is mandatory. The false statements count against Koroma carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 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. Attorney Stephen C. Lee and Catherine Dick, assistant chief in the Fraud Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. The U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Detroit, Indianapolis, and Phoenix also have assisted in the investigation.

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 Medicare Fraud Strike Force began operating in Chicago in February 2011 and consists of agents from the FBI and HHS-OIG working together with prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department’s Fraud Section. The strike force is part of the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), a joint initiative announced in May 2009 between the Department of Justice and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country. Scores of defendants have been charged locally 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.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic #CheckitOut

MARK R. LEVIN HAS MADE THE CASE, IN NUMEROUS NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS—MEN IN BLACK, LIBERTY AND TYR­ANNY, AND AMERITOPIA—THAT THE PRIN­CIPLES UNDERGIRDING OUR SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM ARE UNRAVELING. IN THE LIBERTY AMENDMENTS, HE TURNS TO THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF FOR GUIDANCE IN RESTORING THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.

For a century, the Statists have steadfastly constructed a federal Leviathan, distorting and evading our consti­tutional system in pursuit of an all-powerful, ubiqui­tous central government. The result is an ongoing and growing assault on individual liberty, state sovereignty, and the social compact. Levin argues that if we cherish our American heritage, it is time to embrace a consti­tutional revival.

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Conven­tion in Philadelphia and the delegates to each state’s ratification convention foresaw a time when—despite their best efforts to forestall it—the Federal govern­ment might breach the Constitution’s limits and begin oppressing the people. Agencies such as the IRS and EPA and programs such as Obamacare demonstrate that the Framers’ fear was prescient. Therefore, the Framers provided two methods for amending the Constitution. The second was intended for our current circumstances—empowering the states to bypass Congress and call a convention for the pur­pose of amending the Constitution. Levin argues that we, the people, can avoid a perilous outcome by seek­ing recourse, using the method called for in the Con­stitution itself.

The Framers adopted ten constitutional amend­ments, called the Bill of Rights, that would preserve individual rights and state authority. Levin lays forth eleven specific prescriptions for restoring our founding principles, ones that are consistent with the Framers’ design. His proposals—such as term limits for mem­bers of Congress and Supreme Court justices and lim­its on federal taxing and spending—are pure common sense, ideas shared by many. They draw on the wisdom of the Founding Fathers—including James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and numerous lesser-known but crucially important men—in their content and in the method for applying them to the current state of the nation.

Now is the time for the American people to take the first step toward reclaiming what belongs to them. The task is daunting, but it is imperative if we are to be truly free.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Mob-Con 2013 - First Ever Mob Convention at the Palace Station @PalaceStationLV

Former gangsters and G-Men will come face-to-face in Las Vegas once again — on decidedly more amicable terms — at the first-ever Mob Convention at Palace Station from Sept. 7-8.

The event, presented by former mobster Frank Cullotta and Las Vegas-based businessman Robert George Allen and sponsored by the Mob Attraction at the Tropicana, brings together former crime family members, lawmen, true-crime writers, historians and entertainers for two days of panel discussions, Q+A sessions, meet-and-greets, memorabilia auctions, vendors and more.

Featured guests include Cullotta (of the Chicago Outfit and Hole in the Wall Gang), Tony Montana (Chicago Outfit), Andrew DiDonato (Gambino Family), Frank Calabrese Jr. (Chicago Outfit), Kenji Gallo (Columbo Family), Dennis Arnoldy (FBI), Vito Colucci (law enforcement), Denny Griffin (law enforcement and author), Warren Hull (author), Gary Magnesen (FBI), Gary Jenkins (law enforcement), Ronald Fino (FBI/CIA) and Cathy Scott (author). More guests are to be announced.

“Las Vegas is the ideal city to host Mob-Con,” Allen said in a statement. “People are fascinated about the Mob and, without the Mob, Las Vegas would not be what it is today. Mob-Con is giving the general public unprecedented access to the individuals who were a part of this history.”

Registration for the conference is $195 and includes a 4-hour historical Mob tour of Las Vegas. Tickets can be purchased through the Mob-Con website.

Mob-Con 2013 Mob Convention at Palace Station in Las Vegas

Owner of @HardcorePawn Les Gold, @LesHCP Provides Business Wisdom From a Pawnbroker in New Book

Businesses these days talk a lot about figuring out what the customer wants. Well, here's your first lesson: the customer doesn't know what he wants. This book is going to show you how to convince him he wants the thing you're selling.

Les Gold has been in business since age twelve, when he started selling used golf clubs from his dad's basement. Now he owns Detroit's biggest pawnshop, American Jewelry and Loan, and is the star of the hit reality TV show "Hardcore Pawn."

As a third-generation pawnbroker, Gold grew up in the business, dealing with cus-tomers who could be unruly and violent as often as they were friendly. He became good at selling just about anything and at buying items for what they were worth. Although he started at his family's small pawnshop, he has now expanded into a fifty-thousand-square-foot former bowling alley, making a thousand deals a day.

On any given day, he could be taking a vin-tage car in to pawn or chasing down a thief who's just stolen a gold chain from the store. No business school in the world can teach you as much about buying, selling, negotiating, managing employees, dealing with customers, advertising, tracking trends, and predicting the economy's ups and downs.

In this entertaining, honest book, Gold takes you inside some of his weirdest, wacki-est deals and steals. From the monkey his dad once took in to pawn to the deal Gold made for a stripper pole, he has no boundaries for what he considers to be part of his business--and neither should you.

You will learn: How to tell an emotional story when you're selling--and take emotion out of the transaction when you're buying. Why judging your customers before you know them can kill a potential deal. How to deal with risk, both mental and physical. How to communicate with employees (even if they're your own kids). Why investing in relationships with your community is time well spent. Why your business should never be limited by what others tell you it should be.

No place in the world prepares you better for the working world than a pawnshop, and Les Gold takes you inside his shop to share what he's learned from fifty-five years in the most interesting job in the world.

Affliction!

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