Fort Worth couple indicted on federal charges in health-care kickback conspiracy
A Fort Worth couple have been indicted on federal charges related to illegal kickbacks involving clinical laboratories in Texas and Virginia.
A McKinney man also was indicted by a federal grand jury last month on the same charge, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas. The indictments were unsealed Tuesday.
Federal authorities identified the Fort Worth couple as Sultan Sattar, 64, and his wife, Bibi Zabeda Sattar, 61. The McKinney man is 43-year-old Jeffrey Paul Cornwell, aka “Boomer.”
Each of the three was indicted on the federal charge of conspiring to pay for patient referrals in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute.
They are accused of conspiring to make an unlawful kickback arrangement involving payments for the referral of federal healthcare beneficiaries. The illegal arrangements involved the referral of testing services to clinical laboratories in Frisco, Texas, and Richmond, Virginia, “in exchange for per-test compensation,” according to the indictments.
If convicted, they each face up to five years in federal prison.
“The Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving remuneration to induce referrals of items or services covered by federally-funded programs, including Medicare, TRICARE, and Medicaid,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in the release. “The Anti-Kickback Statute is intended to ensure that medical providers’ judgments are not compromised by improper financial incentives and are instead based on the best interests of their patients.”
The Sattars were arraigned last week, and Cornwell was arraigned on Tuesday.
The case is being investigated by the FBI, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Texas Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 1:42 PM.
