If you’ve been charged with the crime of Medicare and Medical fraud in Los Angeles, here is what not to do:
Do not ignore your charges and flee the country!
This advice should be obvious enough, but 49-year-old Irina Shelikhova, who’s suspected in a giant $70 million Medicare fraud scam in New York City, chose to ignore this common sense.
51-year-old Camillus Ehigie, a Nigerian owner of a Southland medical supply company, has been ordered to pay $7 million, after being convicted of Los Angeles Medicare fraud charges.
U.S. judge Stephen Wilson also sentenced Ehigie to 42 months in a federal prison for his attempt to bilk Medicare out of $20 million. Together with 49-year-old Evans Oniha of Rancho Palos Verdes, Ehigie had operated a home health agency, Prosperity Home Health Services, Inc. and another company, Caravan Medical Supplies.
In 2011, Oniha was convicted of four Los Angeles healthcare fraud counts, one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, and another count of making false statements. Oniha was hit with an eight-year prison sentence back in February and compelled to pay a significant portion of the $7 million restitution. According to prosecutors, Oniha and Ehigie attempted to con Medicare by hiring outside marketers to solicit information from beneficiaries. They then leveraged fraudulent prescriptions and medical equipment documents to bill the federal government for services never provided.
It was a not so petty theft case in Los Angeles: 29-year-old Gerjuan Deshon Harmon broke into reality TV star Jillian Michaels’ home in Malibu, pilfered her purse and 2001 Bentley, and then tried to outrun police in the stolen luxury vehicle, only to smash the car, and fight with the cops before getting arrested.
Michaels was home when the burglary occurred and she didn’t notice that her luxury vehicle or purse was stolen until the following day. After Michaels reported the theft to police, officers in Burbank found the missing Bentley and chased Harmon, who smashed up the car, fled the wreck, and eventually succumbed to arrest after putting up a fight.
Per the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office: Harmon now faces a slew of unpleasant charges, including:
Petty theft in Los Angeles or elsewhere is an interesting animal, as far as crimes are concerned.
Understand that if you steal a valuable item worth less than $400, you can still face plenty of reprobation per California law. Indeed, if you are convicted of two counts of petty theft in Southern California, the second conviction can actually elevate the offense to a felony, and you could end up spending a whole year behind bars or worse!
So shoplifting and other types of petty theft can be punished quite egregiously.
Medical identity theft bonks the U.S. economy to the tune of over $41 billion and costs victims over $20,000 on average, according to a provocative new study by the Ponemon Institute. 
If you’ve been charged with Medicare fraud or identity theft in Southern California, you might find it educational to learn about what happens to victims of medical identity theft. Perhaps, for instance, you aided and abetted someone – that is, lent your healthcare information to a family member or sick friend – and now you face criminal charges. The study out of Michigan looked at 757 cases of medical identity theft. Here are some of the stats:
• 41% of victims lost their coverage and had to find new healthcare;
Los Angeles white collar crimes are just getting more and more diverse. We spend a lot of time on this blog dissecting crimes like medical fraud, insurance fraud, and petty theft in Southern California. But today we’re going to shake things up a bit and explore some innovative terrain to help you put your crime — and your possible defensive options — in perspective.
We’re going to look at computer crimes in L.A.
And one of the “hot new trends” in the world of computer crime is something called “smishing.” This is a cousin to the email crime known as phishing, in which a criminal uses spam and other “email lures” to get users to give away personal information, financial passwords, etcetera. Whereas “phishing” takes place in the arena of email messaging; “smishing” takes place in the arena of text messaging – a.k.a. Short Message Service (SMS) messaging.
If you’ve been investigated arrested for a crime like Southern California Medicare fraud or Medi-Cal fraud, you likely feel under the gun. Prosecutors, “independent” observers and even friends and family members may judge you for damaging our social safety net.
Whether you committed a serious crime or not – or a series of crimes, including Southern California insurance fraud, Los Angeles identity theft, or other Los Angeles white collar crimes – you might find it helpful to put your situation in perspective.
Consider, for instance, a new report by the Heartland Institute, which found that the federal government spent over $250 million on penis pumps over the past 10 years!
Perhaps you or your husband recently got arrested for medical fraud in Los Angeles or Southern California. If so, let’s address a large “elephant in the room” issue — something not often talked about. Namely this: how do otherwise caring and well intention doctors, chiropractors, dentists and other caregivers get “sucked into” perpetrating Southern California white collar crimes, like insurance fraud, credit card fraud, etc?
Now, most people out there assume that doctors or others who engage in fraudulent behavior started with a “master plan” of some sort. They have a cartoonish image of an “evil mastermind” criminal – a la Dr. Evil.
In the real world, however, fraud and other crimes often happen spontaneously, accidentally, unintentionally, etc! This isn’t to say that planning is not involved. Indeed, many people who get into the “Medicare fraud business” (if you will) spend a great deal of time strategizing and executing on their plans. Some of the systems used are extremely complicated, after all.
Last Friday, 50-year-old David James Garrison was found guilty of perpetrating a Los Angeles Medicare fraud scam that bilked the federal program out of almost $19 million. 
As a result of his convictions — fraud, conspiracy, and other Los Angeles white collar criminal charges — Garrison could face more than seven decades behind bars and a fine of up to $2 million. If he ends up having to serve that entire prison sentence, he would have to become the 2nd oldest person in the history of the world to ever see freedom again.
Garrison worked as a physician’s assistant at various bogus medical clinics. He pilfered the identities of patients and used those IDs to create false prescriptions and to place orders for (Medicare funded) equipment. He also stole the identities of doctors to write these fake scripts.
Last week, 25-year old Jorge Luis Dominguez, an aide at Los Angeles Unified School District School, was arrested for lewd conduct in Los Angeles and held on a bail of $100,000. 
Since 2004, Dominguez worked as a coach and aide to teachers. LAUSD superintendent, John Deasy, released a statement about the allegations, which included “criminal acts against children” as well as “lewd acts with a child.” Deasy called these allegations “horrifying and sickening.” According to initial reports, the crimes did not occur at school, and it’s unclear at this point whether a student was a victim. An anonymous mother railed against the notification process, expressing disgust and dismay. Thus far, there is no court date on the books. Shortly after Dominguez’s arrest early Thursday morning, the school terminated his employment.
As this case illustrates, charges of lewd conduct in Los Angeles – or other sex crimes or violent crimes – particularly when they involve children – touch our emotions powerfully. Cases like this are scary and potentially disgusting and disturbing. In the midst of all the allegations — the name calling and fear — it’s easy for compassion and empathy to get lost, especially with respect to the alleged criminal.
Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney Blog