Latest news with #medicalfraud
CBS News
6 days ago
- CBS News
Former Colorado EMT indicted, accused of treating over 100 patients without a license
A Colorado man has been indicted for allegedly claiming to be a certified paramedic and practicing medicine without a license, treating over 100 patients. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued a paramedic certificate to Lauren Wilson in 2009, but discovered in 2011 that he had an undisclosed criminal history under a different spelling of his name. Wilson's certification expired in 2012 before the department finished the process to revoke it. Officials said Wilson never received another paramedic certification, but resumed working as a paramedic in an ambulance company. The CDPHE said he provided care to over 100 patients, often as the only paramedic in the ambulance transporting patients in critical condition to emergency rooms. They said he also decided to transport patients against their will or without their consent. He reportedly worked with medical service companies in 2021 and again in 2022 after claiming to be a certified paramedic. Authorities said he submitted a forged Colorado driver's license with a false birth date to hide his criminal history. Wilson reapplied for a paramedic certification in 2022. Authorities said he used a false birth date and claimed to have never been charged or convicted of a crime. The background report Wilson submitted was based on his false birth date, said the CDPHE, and did not uncover his criminal history. He was arrested on May 29 and was released from the Aurora Municipal Detention Center on a $50,000 bond. Wilson is facing multiple charges, including attempting to influence a public servant, two counts of forgery of a government-issued document, and five counts of unauthorized practice of medicine while fraudulently representing to be a professional.
Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Fraudster doctor who gave chemo to healthy patients WITHOUT cancer to fund lavish $118m lifestyle learns his fate
A Texas doctor has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for orchestrating one of the most egregious medical fraud schemes in modern US history making $118 million in false claims. Jorge Zamora-Quezada, 68, a once-respected rheumatologist, was convicted of diagnosing hundreds of healthy patients with a life-altering disease they never had - all to bankroll his empire of jets, beachfront properties, and European sports cars. Zamora-Quezada's criminal scheme centered around one of deception as set about falsely diagnosing people with rheumatoid arthritis, an incurable autoimmune disease that affects joints but can be treated with various medications and chemotherapy drugs that involve toxins. Armed with falsified test results and fabricated symptoms, he administered toxic treatments, including chemotherapy infusions, steroids, and other aggressive drugs to people who were otherwise young and healthy. 'Dr. Zamora-Quezada funded his luxurious lifestyle for two decades by traumatizing his patients, abusing his employees, lying to insurers, and stealing taxpayer money,' said Matthew R. Galeotti, head of the DOJ's Criminal Division. 'His depraved conduct represents a profound betrayal of trust toward vulnerable patients who depend on care and integrity from their doctors.' The doctor is thought to have particularly made children, the disabled and elderly patients a target. 'Constantly being in bed and being unable to get up from bed alone, and being pumped with medication, I didn't feel like my life had any meaning,' one devastated patient told the court. According to the Department of Justice, patients who should have been thriving were instead left with liver damage, hair loss, strokes, necrosis of the jaw, and chronic pain so severe that some couldn't even lift a spoon or walk unassisted. 'For most patients, it was obvious that they did not have rheumatoid arthritis,' one stunned rheumatologist testified during the 25-day trial. The diagnosis, in many cases, had been conjured out of thin air. The disgraced doctor would order a number of 'fraudulent, repetitive, and excessive medical procedures on patients in order to increase revenue.' All told, Zamora-Quezada's scheme siphoned more than $28 million from Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and private insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield. He used the profits to construct a sprawling real estate portfolio spanning the US and Mexico, purchase a million dollar private jet, and drive off in a Maserati GranTurismo, both of which were branded with his initials 'ZQ'. He also owned multiple residential properties, including two penthouses and a condo in Mexico and another condo in Aspen, Colorado. He owned several homes and commercial buildings in Texas, court records show. And while his patients lay in bed, ravaged by unnecessary drugs, Zamora-Quezada referred to himself as 'La Eminencia' - The Eminence -and flew across borders in style. Having been convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, seven counts of health care fraud, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, Zamora-Quezada will now spend the next decade behind bars. He has been ordered to forfeit over $28 million, his jet, his Maserati, and his entire real estate empire consisting of 13 properties. 'Today's sentence is not just a punishment - it's a warning,' Galeotti said. 'Medical professionals who harm Americans for personal enrichment will be aggressively pursued and held accountable.' Zamora-Quezada's victims have come forward during the trial to explain how their former doctor would diagnose them with degenerative diseases that other doctors would later reveal they never had. One of his victims was Maria Zapata, 70, who went to see the doctor years earlier because of a pain in her knee. The doctor told her she had arthritis and gave her injections that would 'strengthen the cartilage' in her knee. Her husband then asked the doctor why he was administering so many injections, but he reassured them the treatment would help. However, there was discoloration on Zapata's leg and other doctors were concerned with the course of the treatment before finally a doctor told Zapata she never even had arthritis. Another patient of Dr Zamora-Quezada, Nora Rodriguez, said that that he yelled at her and threw her out of his office after she questioned his treatment. 'He kept getting upset when I was asking him why I was feeling worse and not getting better,' she said. 'He yelled and told me, ''you are no longer my patient; get out of this office,''' Rodriguez said. Inside his Mission, Texas clinic, Zamora-Quezada ran what prosecutors described as a 'culture of fear.' He hired foreign staffers on temporary visas, who fearing deportation wouldn't question his unethical orders. One former worker told how he threw a paperweight at them after failing to generate enough unnecessary procedures. When insurance companies requested patient files, employees were told to make them 'appear.' When real patients weren't available for records, he used staffers as fake models for ultrasounds. Many records weren't stored in proper facilities but rather dumped in a rundown barn infested in the Rio Grande Valley that was infested with rodents and termites, some covered in animal feces and urine. He threatened employees, abused his status, and manipulated desperate people who had come to him for care. 'He took advantage of the very system he swore to uphold,' prosecutors argued in court. For his victims, many say the damage cannot be undone. Among the most harrowing testimonies came from parents of children subjected to unnecessary treatments. One mother compared her child's experience under Zamora-Quezada's care to that of a science experiment: 'He used my child like a lab rat,' she said, describing endless injections and pills prescribed for a disease that never existed. Others told the court they lived for years under the shadow of a false diagnosis, believing their dreams had been crushed with not much longer left to live. Some described how the devastating diagnosis saw them abandoning plans for college or feeling like they were 'living a life in the body of an elderly person.' Zamora-Quezada's had faced some public scrutiny in the past. In 2006, he was accused of prescribing a drug 'inconsistent with public health and welfare' and of 'billing for treatment that was improper, unreasonable, or medically or clinically unnecessary.' He later settled for a public reprimand by the Texas Medical Board in 2009 and was fined $30,000 but able to continue his practice.
Telegraph
12-05-2025
- Telegraph
Fake doctor performed £40 circumcisions after advertising in mosques
A fake doctor carried out circumcisions after advertising his budget services in mosques, a court has heard. Mohammed Alazawi, 54, is believed to have performed dozens of 'unsafe and unsanitary' procedures between 2016 and 2022, including circumcising a two-week old baby on a coffee table. He gave anaesthetic jabs to his victims, despite not having any qualifications. Alazawi used a bogus document attributed to Istiklal Hospital in Jordan that stated he was trained in circumcision, Southwark Crown Court heard. He explained to police after his arrest that he was a 'circumcision expert and a taxi driver'. Detectives believe that there were many more victims of Alazawi who have not come forward. Speaking after the verdicts, Judge Perrins said that the law around male circumcision should be changed because it 'remains almost entirely unregulated'. Leaflet in mosque During the trial, jurors heard evidence from a father whose baby was circumcised by Alazawi in February 2017. He said that he had contacted the defendant after he saw a leaflet in Woolwich Mosque, south-east London and invited him to carry out the procedure at his home. When he arrived, Alazawi told the father – who believed he was a qualified medical professional – that he was ''going to clean the area and that it would be done Islamically.' He then carried out the circumcision on a coffee table for a fee of £40, the court heard. Asked by prosecutors if he would have allowed Alazawi to circumcise his child had he known he was not qualified, the father said: 'No. I was thinking he was qualified. The advert was left in the mosque, that gives me trust.' Fraud and assault convictions Alazawi was convicted of six counts of fraud and six counts of wounding with intent by a jury. He was also found guilty of three counts of supplying a prescription only medicine, three counts of supplying a pharmacy medicine and one assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Alazawi earlier admitted 15 counts of parental administration of a prescription only medicine, three counts of supplying a prescription only medicine and two counts of supplying a pharmacy medicine. He will return for sentence on June 26. Anja Hohmeyer from the Crown Prosecution Service said: 'Alazawi pretended to be a medical practitioner to unsuspecting families and carried out circumcisions in unsafe, unsanitary and harmful ways, demonstrating a blatant disregard for the safety of his young patients and the impact of his actions on his victims, their families, and communities. 'We hope that this conviction offers them some comfort in seeing Alazawi being brought to justice.'
