Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson (credit: Getty Images)
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Twenty-three people have been charged in an alleged Medicaid fraud ring that preyed on the city’s poor, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said Tuesday.
Thompson said recruiters would stake out homeless shelters, soup kitchens and welfare offices searching for people with Medicaid cards. The recruiters would then allegedly offer them free sneakers if they boarded a van and went to one of several clinics to undergo a battery of unneeded tests. The customers would also be given items such as orthopedic insoles and knee braces that were medically unnecessary.
“Particularly egregious because it could not have succeeded were it not for the exploitation of poor people who needed shoes,” Thompson said.
Thompson said the ringleader was Eric Vanier, 43, of Manhattan, who owned or was affiliated with eight clinics and was caught on a wiretap referring to the patients as “guinea pigs.” His mother Polina Vainer, 66, of Staten Island, allegedly served as his second in command.
Nine doctors are among the 23 people charged. The charges include enterprise corruption, money laundering, scheme to defraud, health care fraud and grand larceny.
