Therapist's Grisly Death; Surgery Center Wins $421M; Army Doc's Plea Deal

— A weekly roundup of healthcare's encounters with the courts

by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, �鶹��ý October 3, 2024

Legal Break over a blindfolded Lady Justice statue holding scales.

TikTok star "Mr.Prada" in connection with the death of a therapist who was found wrapped in a tarp and dumped in a ditch alongside a Louisiana highway on Sunday. (WECT)

A jury handed a Louisiana surgery center a against the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield plan for underpaying claims. (The Guardian)

Mark Chavez, MD, the California doctor who helped Matthew Perry get ketamine, to conspiring to distribute the drug. He previously reached a plea deal with prosecutors and is expected to be sentenced to far less time than the 10 years allowed by law because of his cooperation. (AP)

Army physician Michael Stockin, MD, who was accused of sexual misconduct by more than 40 patients, . (CBS News)

A former contractor at two Detroit hospitals alleges in a new lawsuit that he was for raising concerns about unsanitary conditions in operating rooms, patient areas, and delivery rooms. (Detroit Metro Times)

John Kosolcharoen, founder and CEO of the embattled stem cell company Liveyon, was sentenced to 3 years in prison, .

A West Virginia pain clinic will pay $750,000 to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims for amniotic fluid injections for pain management, which it knew Medicare did not cover, .

Two former employees against a Michigan swim school after Oumair Aejaz, MD, allegedly secretly recorded them undressing. Aejaz was previously charged with sex crimes for placing hidden cameras in changing rooms. (CBS News)

A Montana man was sentenced to for illegally cloning sheep for trophy hunting. (AP)

Federal prosecutors charged 18 people for selling millions of pills through fake online pharmacies that were claimed to be real pharmaceuticals but contained fentanyl and methamphetamine. At least nine people died of narcotics poisoning because of the products, including one 45-year-old army veteran who thought she was purchasing real oxycodone, .

An Illinois lab owner pleaded guilty to a $14 million COVID testing scheme in which he knowingly doled out negative test results even though samples were never tested, .

that San Diego-based Precision Toxicology will pay $27 million to resolve claims that it billed for unnecessary urine drug tests and gave out freebies to doctors who "agreed to refer expensive laboratory testing business to Precision."

Kristina Fiore leads MedPage’s enterprise & investigative reporting team. She’s been a medical journalist for more than a decade and her work has been recognized by Barlett & Steele, AHCJ, SABEW, and others. Send story tips to k.fiore@medpagetoday.com.