Kickbacks

More than 300 area doctors have agreed to pay the federal government rather than contest charges that they took kickbacks from the operators of a medical laboratory for ordering "unnecessary" lab tests, authorities announced yesterday. "The response . . . was overwhelming," said James G. Sheehan, chief of the civil division of the U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia. Of 359 letters sent last month by federal prosecutors to doctors and group practices in Pennsylvania and New Jersey threatening civil suits, 300 resulted in payments totaling $467,500 so far, said Sheehan.

Four former Philadelphia School District employees who admitted taking cash kickbacks from a pizza supplier now owe the taxpayers a lot of dough, a federal judge has ruled. Although the district has some doubts if it will be able to collect much of the money, Senior U.S. District Judge J. William Ditter Jr., in an order filed yesterday, sliced it this way, awarding treble damages under a civil anti- racketeering law: Anthony D'Alonzo, former executive director of business operations, admitted taking about $48,000, so his piece of the damage pie is three times that - $144,000.

A former vice president and clothing designer at Pincus Brothers-Maxwell was sentenced yesterday to six months in a halfway house for failing to pay taxes on kickbacks he got from a piecework subcontractor. Pasquale J. Caruso, 51, who recently was fired by PBM, one of the city's largest clothing makers, was also fined $5,000 by U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. Caruso, who will be permitted to work outside the halfway house, had requested house arrest. In seeking leniency, he submitted character references from former co-workers and others, including U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Foglietta and Ronald R. Donatucci, the city's register of wills.

A former purchasing agent for Boeing Helicopter in Ridley Park was convicted by a federal jury yesterday of taking more than $30,000 in kickbacks to grant $1.49 million in aircraft parts contracts to two Boeing suppliers. The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before convicting Don Eugene Smith of three counts of mail fraud and one count of violating the Anti- Kickback Act. The jury also acquitted Smith of one count of soliciting a kickback. U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle 3d scheduled sentencing for June 7. The most serious charge on which Smith was convicted - the kickback count - carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

An administrator of health and welfare plans for eight area unions has admitted taking $53,699 in kickbacks from a printer who overcharged the plans for his services to cover the illegal payoffs. The plans' administrator, Rudolph Capri, 46, an officer of Accu Benefits Plan Inc., 6th and Chestnut streets, and the printer, Robert Reeves, 42, of Richboro, Bucks County, yesterday were charged with kickback and embezzlement offenses in federal court. Another printer, William Newhart, 49, of Newton Avenue near Cheltenham, has admitted failing to report on his tax returns more than $54,000 in income he got from Reeves to do printing work for the benefit plans.

The founder of a nationally known Bucks County construction firm yesterday was ordered imprisoned for eight months and fined $225,000 by a federal judge for evading income taxes on cash kickbacks that he admitted getting from a subcontractor. Anthony Marques, 67, a Portuguese immigrant who started Lisbon Contractors Inc. of Danboro three decades ago with $2,400 and who now claims a net worth of $15 million, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle 3d to begin serving his sentence Feb. 6. "You have cheated your adopted country and the hardworking citizens of this country who paid their taxes, most of whom have a lot less in the way of worldly goods than you have," Bartle told Marques.

WASHINGTON - The General Services Administration's inspector general said Monday that he was investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as a central figure in a GSA spending scandal asserted his right to remain silent at a congressional hearing. Inspector general Brian Miller, responding to a question at the hearing, said: "We do have other ongoing investigations, including all sorts of improprieties, including bribes, including possible kickbacks. " Jeffrey Neely, who asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege before the committee, has been placed on leave as a regional executive in Western states.

The head of a medical supply business pleaded guilty yesterday to paying $85,000 in kickbacks to a local doctor who recommended the company's bandages for Medicare patients with bedsores. Federal law prohibits physicians from soliciting or receiving payoffs "in return for ordering . . . or recommending" Medicare-covered supplies, said Assistant U.S. Attornies Joan L. Markman and Marilyn May. David A. Navazio, 36, of Yardley, Bucks County, now a prosecution witness, admitted paying the kickbacks to Dr. Gregory H. Pierce, who treated Medicare patients at the Philadelphia Nursing Home and at the Neumann Wound Care Center, which Pierce headed.

Two Philadelphia lawyers yesterday were convicted by a jury in U.S. District Court of paying $16,800 in kickbacks to the Roofers Union in 1985 - money union officials used to bribe city judges and other public officials. The jury, however, acquitted attorneys Herbert K. Fisher and Herman Bloom of all other charges, including paying kickbacks to the union in 1983 and 1984, theft from an employee benefit plan and racketeering. Fisher, 62, of Gladwyne, and Bloom, 64, of Brandywine Street near 19th, longtime partners in the law firm of Bloom, Ocks and Fisher, were allowed to remain free pending sentencing on July 14 by U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz.

Middlemen have added millions of dollars in kickbacks and exorbitant profits to the cost of Vermont granite being used in the construction of an addition to the state Capitol, an investigator for a House committee said yesterday. Stanley Gochenour, a private detective hired by a special House committee investigating the $117 million construction project, told the committee in a public hearing that two western Pennsylvania stone merchants formed a consortium with subcontractors who paid the merchants "concessions" in return for steering the work to the subcontractors.

A former contracts manager for the Philadelphia Housing Authority, who is cooperating with investigators in an ongoing federal probe of the agency, was sentenced Wednesday to 50 months in prison for taking $25,000 in kickbacks. Kerri Bizzell, 43, who handled small construction contracts, pleaded guilty in May to extorting the money from two contractors. She also admitted obstructing a grand jury by trying to prevent a contractor from disclosing the payments. U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg ordered her to repay PHA the $25,000.

A suburban Philadelphia doctor who provided hospice care for the terminally ill was charged with taking kickbacks for referring dying Medicare and Medicaid patients from his private practice to the health care company where he worked part-time, the U.S. Attorney's office announced Thursday. Yevgeniy "Eugene" Goldman, 54, of Huntingdon Valley, had a private practice in Philadelphia but also worked as a part-time medical director for Home Care Hospice, Inc. in Northeast Philadelphia.

NEW YORK — On Tuesday morning, Old City developer Michael Yaron stood in the hallway of a Manhattan courthouse with friends and family, framed by a tall open window, the Empire State Building rising up behind him. A few hours later, inside Courtroom 21D, Yaron learned that the empire he started from humble beginnings in Israel, in the storied halls of Oxford University, and on the streets he transformed in Philadelphia, will come to an end...

WASHINGTON - The General Services Administration's inspector general said Monday that he was investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as a central figure in a GSA spending scandal asserted his right to remain silent at a congressional hearing. Inspector general Brian Miller, responding to a question at the hearing, said: "We do have other ongoing investigations, including all sorts of improprieties, including bribes, including possible kickbacks. " Jeffrey Neely, who asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege before the committee, has been placed on leave as a regional executive in Western states.

IN 1989, Michael Yaron begged a federal judge in Philadelphia for another chance, one more opportunity to use his Oxford education and business prowess for good. It wasn't the first time Yaron, a Philadelphia developer, philanthropist and political donor, had asked the court for mercy and it might not be his last. On Feb. 2, Yaron, 67, and three other individuals were convicted of wire and mail fraud in Manhattan stemming from an eight-year conspiracy involving kickbacks in excess of $2 million, the FBI said in a recent news release.

WASHINGTON - Two employees of the Army Corps of Engineers and two others were arrested yesterday in a vast $20-million bribery and kickback case that prosecutors say paid for more than a dozen properties, Rolex and Cartier watches, fancy sports cars, first-class airline tickets and a trove of other personal luxuries. Prosecutors said the case may be one of the largest procurement-fraud schemes in the nation's history. An indictment unsealed yesterday includes charges of bribery, conspiracy and unlawful kickbacks.

In the Region Guilty plea entered in mortgage fraud John C. Lucidi Jr., a former mortgage broker for companies in West Chester and Newtown Square, pleaded guilty to a mortgage fraud that cost banks more than $7 million between May 2005 and October 2008, Zane David Memeger, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said Thursday. Lucidi, 30, of Las Vegas, allegedly found buyers for houses at inflated prices, helped them qualify for mortgages by supplying false information to lenders, and gave the buyers kickbacks at closing, typically between $30,000 and $50,000, prosecutors said.

A Las Vegas man who once worked in West Chester was charged today by the U.S. Attorney here in a $7-million mortgage fraud scheme. Authorities said John C. Lucidi Jr., 30, who formerly worked as a mortgage broker for companies in West Chester and Newtown Square, defrauded at least seven financial institutions as part of a scheme that lasted from May 2005 to October 2008. The court filing alleged that Lucidi found buyers, including family members, to purchase homes-primarily located in North Wildwood for inflated prices so that buyers could get kickbacks of of between $30,000 and $50,000 at closing.

The scheme allegedly involved a collision shop, a destructive forklift and kickbacks. It may have pulled in millions of dollars, but it likely ended a cop's career, possibly putting him and 10 others behind bars. District Attorney Seth Williams announced yesterday that Officer Gary Cottrell, 44, a 15-year veteran; Edward Hildebrandt, 41, of Philadelphia, owner of University Collision Centers; body-shop manager David Coleman, 41, of Chadds Ford, and lawyer Michael Wolf, 52, of Phoenixville, each face decades in prison and more than $100,000 in fines.