AP) MIAMI — Federal authorities charged 107 doctors, nurses and social workers in seven cities with Medicare fraud Wednesday in a nationwide crackdown on unrelated scams that allegedly billed the taxpayer-funded program of $452 million — the highest dollar amount in a single Medicare bust in U.S. history. It was the latest in a string of major arrests in the past two years as authorities have targeted fraud that’s believed to cost the government between $60 billion and $90 billion each year. Stopping Medicare’s budget from hemorrhaging that money will be key to paying for President Barack Obama’s health care  [ Read More ]

Published: Monday, April 30, 2012, 6:18 AM By: Star-Ledger Editorial Board Brace yourself, because this is the kind of story that can make you so crazy you may pop a blood vessel. We give you state Sen. Nicholas Sacco, the political boss of North Bergen, a man so shameless that he makes the other politicians look like selfless and decent fellows. Sacco, a Democrat, has three public jobs that bring him a combined salary of $299,000. That should be criminal in itself, but Sacco and his pals in Trenton have blocked one governor after another as they have tried to  [ Read More ]

Survey of More Than 900 Auditors From Firms of All Sizes See Huge Fraud Risk BRENTWOOD, Tenn., April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — More than 37 percent of auditors expect to find fraud among their own clients, according to a new survey of more than 900 auditors conducted by Confirmation.com, the creator and leading provider of secure audit confirmation services. The survey polled global users of the Confirmation.com system, which includes all of the top 100 accounting firms. Auditors were asked about the perceived risk of uncovering fraud during the annual audit process and more generally about finding fraud  [ Read More ]

By Marty Graham SAN DIEGO | Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:52pm EDT (Reuters) – Bicyclist Floyd Landis, stripped of his 2006 Tour de France win after testing positive for testosterone, is the subject of a federal investigation into a $450,000 defense fund he created and later abandoned, a legal source said on Friday. A letter sent to Landis, 36, informing him of a grand jury probe indicated he was being investigated for mail and wire fraud linked to the Floyd Fairness Fund, said the source, who has seen the letter. The fund, created in 2007, raised money to defend Landis  [ Read More ]

By: Aruna Viswanatha | Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An Obama administration task force probing misconduct that fueled the financial crisis is increasing its ranks, adding five financial analysts and 10 new federal prosecutors spread across the country, according to a senior Justice Department official. The increased staffing reflects a new push by the administration to aggressively pursue cases against firms and individuals who contributed to the 2007-2009 financial crisis, especially ahead of the November election. The U.S. Justice Department has so far brought few cases against high-profile targets since the crash. The department closed criminal investigations without bringing charges against  [ Read More ]

Published: Thursday, April 19, 2012, 4:03 PM Updated: Thursday, April 19, 2012, 5:22 PM By: The Jersey Journal | NJ.com NEWARK — A Jersey City man who used his New York auto repair business to perpetuate bank fraud was sentenced today to 41 months in prison for his role in the scheme, which caused four banks to lose roughly $1 million, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Syed Rehman, 45, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares to an Information charging him with one count of bank fraud, admitting he was part of a scheme involving the  [ Read More ]

New Mexico Business Weekly Date: Friday, April 20, 2012, 9:35am MDT – Last Modified: Friday, April 20, 2012, 9:36am MDT New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has filed a lawsuit against Sprint Nextel Corp., alleging that the wireless carrier deliberately under-collected and underpaid more than $100 million in New York state and local sales taxes. The allegations, which started with a whistleblower, deal with taxes collected from consumers on flat-rate access charges for wireless calling plans. The suit, brought under the New York False Claims Act, would require Sprint (NYSE: S) to pay three times its underpayment plus penalties —  [ Read More ]

By Chuck Bartels The Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An Arkansas judge on Wednesday fined Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary more than $1.1 billion after a jury found that the companies downplayed and hid risks associated with taking the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. Circuit Judge Tim Fox determined that Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, committed nearly 240,000 violations of the state’s Medicaid fraud law — or one for each Risperdal prescription issued to state Medicaid patients over a 3½-year period. Each violation carried a $5,000 fine, the state’s mandatory minimum amount, bringing the total to more  [ Read More ]

Dragados USA-Judlau JV paid less than $5M for work performed, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says By Robert Gearty / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS The lead contractor on the MTA’s East Side Access project will pay $7.5 million to settle civil fraud charges arising from its use of minority-owned front companies, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced Wednesday. Prosecutors had charged contractors lied to make it appear they had complied with a legal requirement to hire minority businesses as subcontractors for the federally funded project. Dragados USA-Judlau JV had reported that it had paid about $17 million to the firms when  [ Read More ]

BRIDGEPORT, Conn.—A Naugatuck woman has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison for participating in a scheme to defraud Webster Bank and Bank of America of $6 million. Susan Curtis was sentenced Thursday in U.S. district court in Bridgeport. She pleaded guilty to bank fraud and tax charges. Federal authorities say Curtis was working for the property services division of Webster Bank when she duped it into paying $5 million in fees to two companies she and her husband established. U.S. Attorney David Fein said Curtis stole from her employer to buy luxuries such as cruises and artwork.  [ Read More ]

Originally Posted by Associated Press on NFL.com LOS ANGELES — A financial adviser for Indianapolis Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney and the adviser’s lover have been arrested on federal wire fraud charges that allege they swindled about $2.2 million from the lineman. Eva Weinberg, 48, of Los Angeles, and Michael Stern, 51, of Miami, were arrested last week by FBI agents who believe the couple were trying to flee the United States. Stern appeared in a Miami courtroom Wednesday and will be extradited in the coming weeks to California, where he and Weinberg face charges. “Mr. Stern denies he violated  [ Read More ]

Reuters 4:37 p.m. CDT, March 26, 2012 Microsoft Corp. claimed a victory in efforts to combat online banking fraud, saying it had confiscated several servers used to steal login names and passwords, disrupting some of the world’s most sophisticated cybercrime rings. The software maker said Monday that its cybercrime investigation group also took legal and technical actions to fight notorious criminals who infect computers with a prevalent malicious software known as Zeus. By recruiting computers into networks called botnets, Zeus logs the online activity of infected machines, providing criminals with credentials to access financial accounts. “We’ve disrupted a critical source  [ Read More ]

By Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone Politics The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out? At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we’ll all be paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates? The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple fees out  [ Read More ]

The Associated Press March 19, 2012, 7:13PM ET George Tannous, a former IRS agent was sentenced to three years in federal prison for taking part in a securities fraud scheme that defrauded hundreds of people out of more than $8 million. Tannous solicited people to buy unregistered stock in his company Bidbay.com, which developed and marketed an internet auction website, with the promise that the company was going to be acquired by eBay. If you are aware of someone committing securities fraud, you may be entitled to a monetary reward. Contact the Law Offices of Stephan T. Mashel today for  [ Read More ]

By CHAD BRAY, REED ALBERGOTTI and MATTHEW FUTTERMAN | Wall Street Journal For the owners of the New York Mets, settling a lawsuit over their investments with Bernard Madoff apparently was as much about their reputations as it was about the money. Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for Mr. Madoff’s firm, had sued the Mets owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, as well as their families and business associates for more than $300 million they invested with Mr. Madoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges three years ago. The Mets owners, in a deal announced Monday, agreed to settle the  [ Read More ]