Florida Doctor Indicted for Role in $13.8 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme

The Honorable Judge Elizabeth Foote, of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, sentenced defendant Codi Dodge, 35, the former Deputy Chief of Investigations for the St. Martinville Police Department (SMPD), to serve nine years in prison on four felony counts related to his abuse of an arrestee.  Defendant Dodge was convicted at trial in November on charges of violating the civil rights of an arrestee by using excessive force against him, and of obstructing justice and conspiring with others to do so.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment yesterday against the former president and the former chief legal officer of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, a publicly traded Fortune 200 technology services company based in Teaneck, New Jersey, in connection with an alleged foreign bribery scheme.

A Michigan woman pleaded guilty today for her role as a patient recruiter in a scheme involving approximately $1.2 million in fraudulent Medicare claims for home health care procured through the payment of kickbacks.

A Baltimore, Maryland man was sentenced today to life in prison for conspiring to participate in a violent racketeering enterprise known as Trained To Go (TTG). The racketeering conspiracy included eight murders, drug trafficking, and witness intimidation.

The Department of Justice today announced that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the State of Connecticut through the Connecticut Secretary of the State to help ensure compliance with federal law regarding maintenance of voter registration lists.  Under the agreement, Connecticut will coordinate its statewide voter registration database with Connecticut Department of Public Health records to identify registered voters who have died.

A Beijing, China man was sentenced today to 54 months in federal prison for directing the shipment of counterfeit computer-networking equipment into the Southern District of Texas.

A tax return preparer operating in Irving, Texas, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the United States and to aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox for the Northern District of Texas. 

Commentators, politicians, and sometimes even comedians currently are pushing to expand the reach of the antitrust laws.  There is today a chorus of calls to bring antitrust enforcement actions to solve problems that are sometimes correlated with, but not necessarily even caused by, concentration in an industry.