Punishment

Published on: December 20, 2010

Glendale DUI News Shocks Local Firefighters; Story of South Dakota Firefighter Driving Truck While DUI Elicits Condemnation from Local Responders

Everyone and his mother knows not to drive a fire truck while DUI in Glendale. But a South Dakota volunteer firefighter, Scott Johnson, was pulled over on Labor Day weekend for driving his fire truck while under the influence. Last week, a local jury in Madison, SD, found the 43 year old guilty after deliberating for only 45 minutes. Those who’ve recently come under suspicion for DUI in Glendale, driving under the influence in Burbank, Los Angeles DUI, or DUI in Pasadena can learn a lot from the story of Johnson’s arrest and punishment.

According to local reports, Johnson had been drinking at a local bar while working as a bouncer. After the bar closed, Johnson returned home. He then received a distress call at around 2.30 a.m. He hopped in his truck and drove out to see what happened. It was a false alarm. But a police officer who had seen him drinking at the bar earlier saw him driving his truck. He grew concerned because he had seen Johnson consume so much alcohol. So he followed the volunteer back to the station and subjected him to field sobriety tests and a blood test. Johnson’s BAC level registered 0.098%, above the Southern California (and South Dakota) legal limit of 0.08%. Pursuant to his conviction for DUI last Tuesday, Johnson may face a year behind bars or a fine of $2000. He is scheduled to be sentenced on the 3rd of January.

Individuals like Johnson who are suspected of DUI in Burbank will be asked to take chemical tests like the breathalyzer. This test, also known as a PAS test, will be administered by an officer through a handheld device. Ostensibly, the breathalyzer notes how much alcohol is concentrated in the breath and uses that number to extrapolate a suspect’s blood alcohol concentration. According to California Vehicle Code Section 23152(b), if you drive a motor vehicle with a BAC of greater than 0.08% in Glendale, you can be arrested and charged with DUI.

The problem is that flaws abound with Glendale breathalyzer tests:

• The courts have only recently allowed PAS test results to be used as evidence because of the many potential flaws and complications.
• The PAS test does not distinguish between a woman and a man – and research shows that men and women process alcohol very differently.
• A machine can yield a “false positive,” even if you haven’t been drinking ethanol, if you’ve been exposed to other chemicals that the device is sensitive to.
• The amount of food you ate before having alcohol, whether or not you are diabetic, whether or not the machine was properly calibrated, administered and interpreted, and so on can all influence the validity of the PAS test results.

All that being said, challenging a positive breathalyzer test is both an art and a science. An experienced Glendale DUI defense attorney, like Michael Kraut, can help you understand how to battle back against your Los Angeles DUI charge to either get the charges dismissed or to plea bargain them down to more reduced and palatable penalties.

Connect with the Harvard Law School educated Kraut for help with your Glendale DUI at 818-507-9123, or set an appointment to stop in at the local office: 121 W Lexington Dr, Glendale, CA 91203.

Published on: December 13, 2010

Massive Los Angeles Healthcare Fraud (and Elsewhere) Settlement Makes Taxpayers Livid

by Michael Kraut

The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg News and other major media services are reporting on an enormous Los Angeles medical fraud (and elsewhere) settlement involving three pharmaceutical firms: Abbott Laboratories, B. Braun Medical of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Roxane Laboratories of Columbus, Ohio. All told, the $420+ million settlement stemmed from a whistleblower charge pursuant to the False Claims Act.

Essentially, the drug companies overinflated their benchmark pricing to government insurers. In other words, they gave pharmacies and doctors a discounted price, and then they inflated how much the drugs cost and passed that difference onto the taxpayers. This illegal inflation became so well known that the benchmark — called the Average Wholesale Price (AWP) — soon became known among everyone in the industry as “ain’t what’s paid.” A spokesman for the Justice Department put it bluntly: “The only persons who paid the inflated, reported drug price were you, the American taxpayers.”

Cases of medical, dental, and chiropractic fraud, insurance fraud, credit card fraud, and other Southern California white collar crimes are significant and troubling. But the typical local cases pale in comparison with the national Medicare and Medicaid schemes unraveled by the Justice Department recently. Here is a quick recap of a few jaw dropping settlements:

Published on: December 6, 2010

Bizarre Defense Works: Southern California DUI Analysts Amazed by “Drinking to Keep Warm” Defense

by Michael Kraut

Let’s face it: Getting charged and convicted of a Southern California DUI can ruin your day and radically alter your life’s course. Thus, it’s not surprising that defendants charged with crimes like DUI in Pasadena, DUI in Burbank, Glendale DUI, or Los Angeles DUI resort to contrivances to protect their freedom and avoid trouble. Often, prosecutors can break down bizarre and nonsensical defenses easily, but a recent acquittal out of Missouri has many experts in Southern California and across the nation scratching their heads and engaging in heated debates in internet forums.

Drinking to Keep Warm??

A Missouri man, Thomas Drummond, got acquitted of charge of Missouri DUI last week based on the argument that he had been drinking “to keep warm” in the wake of an accident. According to reports, Drummond had been driving near Jackson, Missouri, when his truck slipped off an icy road into a culvert. Panicked, the man text messaged his girlfriend on a dying cell phone and alerted to her his predicament. He then opened a bottle of brandy he had stored in his car and began drinking the alcohol to “stay warm” until authorities could help him out of the ditch. When the police finally showed up at 4 a.m., they found Drummond “unresponsive” and tested him via a breathalyzer. His BAC tested at 0.148% – nearly twice the Southern California DUI legal limit of 0.08%, as defined by California Vehicle Code Section 23152(b).

Published on: November 30, 2010

Southern California Medicare Fraud Alert: Florida Couple Pays More Than $22 Million to Resolve Fraud Allegations

by Michael Kraut

A 70-year old cardiologist, Dr. Walter Janke, and his wife, Lalita Janke, have agreed to pay $22.6 million to resolve Medicare fraud allegations – a stunning move that has analysts who follow events in the world of Los Angeles Medicare fraud talking.

The Jankes had owned two large organizations – Medicare Advantage and America’s Health Choice Medical Plans – and allegedly overstated patient diagnoses to garner extra money from the federal government. Lawyers for the U.S. in District Court argued that Jankes’ acts violated the False Claims Act. The U.S. has frozen $20 million of the Jankes’ assets. The settlement will be paid out of those assets as well as out of their personal funds.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) has been engaged in a long and heated battle with the Jankes, according to an article in South Florida Business Journal. The cardiologist’s attorney lamented the situation: ”there has been a long history of clear animosity directed at the Janke’s from CMS.” The attorney argued that the Medicare audit done to determine the settlement amount was unfair – essentially, by extrapolating based on a fraction of a percentage of patient cases, CMS might have erred by as much as 30%.

Published on: November 23, 2010

Los Angeles DUI Bloggers Intrigued by Two Minor Celebrity Arrests

by Michael Kraut

Last week, Southern California DUI bloggers took a look at two breaking minor celebrity arrests out of Florida. Although a vast majority of DUI in Pasadena, DUI in Burbank, DUI in Glendale, and DUI in Los Angeles cases involve “non-celebrities,” DUI bloggers nonetheless spend the lion’s share of their attention on the plights of the popular. Last week, that meant probing the arrests of a professional wrestler’s sidekick and a failed mayoral candidate.

The website TMZ.com reported on Thursday that Kevin Kiley — a.k.a “Alex Riley” — had been arrested in Tampa after driving under the influence. Riley is a star of the World Wrestling Circuit – he serves as a sidekick to another wrestler named The Miz. The 29-year old Riley was released after posting a $500 bond.

Meanwhile, in Fort Myers, Florida, a former mayoral candidate, the 27-year old Gena Persons, flipped her car over a parking barrier near the intersection of Shoemaker and Palm Beach, while driving nearly 65 miles per hour. Officers who responded to the rollover tested Persons for DUI and gave her a breathalyzer test. She blew a 0.191% and 0.187% – both significantly over both Florida and California’s legal limit of 0.08%.

Now, when most people read stories of celebrities (or non-celebrities) like Persons blowing breathalyzer results of 0.191% or so, they quickly “convict in their minds.” But this rush to judgment is often unfounded. Indeed, breathalyzer results are far less accurate than popular culture makes them to be. Many factors can throw off breathalyzer test results – way off. These include but are not limited to:

• Whether you are a diabetic (diabetics produce chemicals on their breath that can skew breathalyzer tests towards “false positives”)
• Whether you are a man or a woman – men and women process alcohol at very different rates
• How deeply you blow into the machine – the deeper you blow, the higher your BAC level will read
• Issues with the test itself – poor calibration, administration, and record keeping on the part of police can lead people to get arrested/convicted for DUI unfairly
So what should you do if you or someone close to you has been recently arrested for driving under the influence in Southern California? Can you fight the breathalyzer test results? Should you? What if the blood tests show that you were DUI?

To get these and other crucial questions answered, you should almost certainly retain an experienced Los Angeles DUI attorney, like Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Kraut.

Published on: November 15, 2010

Kansas Doctor Sentenced to Three Years in Federal Prison for Fraud; Los Angeles Medical Fraud Analysts Examine Case

by Michael Kraut

Southern California medical care fraud analysts have been wrapped up debating the massive October bust of a Medicare fraud ring allegedly tied to the Armenian mafia. But a breaking story out of Kansas has siphoned off a lot of media attention.

Wayne W. Williamson, 67, an Olathe Kansas ex-physician, was sentenced last Monday to a three year federal jail sentence for distributing prescription drugs illegally and committing healthcare fraud. Williamson pled guilty in July to medical fraud and to harassing a Kansas medical investigator. White collar crime prosecutors said that Williamson used to go into apartment complex parking lots and sell drugs out of his car – drugs like Percocet, Xanax, and OxyContin. One “client” allegedly paid the doctor for $150 for prescriptions of Oxycodone. The client then resold those pills on the black market for $30 each to make a profit. The man testified to making several transactions with the former doctor over two years. Williamson also billed Medicare and Medicaid for non-existing services. The court ordered him to pay restitution of nearly $3,000. Williamson also surrendered his medical license and agreed to never practice medicine in the U.S. again.

Southern California healthcare fraud is an immensely complicated crime. Depending on what you allegedly did, how you did it, and various other factors, you can face charges pursuant to many different laws. For instance, Labor Code Section 3700, Penal Code Section 118, Penal Code Section 550, and Insurance Code Section 1871.4 could be applicable. If convicted, you can face jail time, loss of your license, strict probation terms, major court costs and fines, and mandatory restitution to providers like Medi-Cal, Medicare, or insurance companies.

Law enforcement agents are familiar with myriad “varieties” of Southern California insurance fraud, white collar crime, and healthcare fraud. For instance, if you made up medical records, billed providers like Medi-Cal or Medicare for services that you never rendered, prescribed medicines that were not necessary, or “double billed” or offered excessive and unnecessary procedures, prosecutors can go after you.

Given how complicated these charges can be, it’s important to have a savvy and experienced Southern California medical care fraud attorney on your side, like Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Kraut.

Published on: November 8, 2010

Southern California DUI Pileup Leads to One Death and Multiple Injuries

by Michael Kraut

A tragic Southern California DUI crash in Santa Barbara has resulted in the death of 73-year old Liesel Ryden as well as injuries to several other people. Local prosecutors are accusing a 54-year old local businesswoman, Priscilla Susman, of causing the complicated, multi-car accident on Highway 154 near Cold Spring Bridge.

If you’ve been recently arrested for DUI in Burbank, DUI in Pasadena, Los Angeles DUI, or Glendale DUI – whether you got involved in a big multi-car pileup or simply blew 0.08% or above on a breathalyzer test at a checkpoint – the story of the allegations against Susman may be quite instructive.

According to news reports, the restaurateur, who owns and runs the Paradise Store and Grill, lost control of her sport utility vehicle on September 15th at around 8:20 in the evening. She swung into oncoming traffic, precipitating a series of accidents involving vehicles travelling westbound. All told, four different vehicles got entangled. One woman (the aforementioned 73-year old Liesel Ryden) died. Three people, including Susman, suffered serious injuries. Prosecutors plan to arraign Susman on November 29th on an array of charges, including vehicular manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol, two DUI counts, and a special allegation of causing serious bodily injury to multiple people.

Let’s take a break here and review California’s vehicular manslaughter law — a law that both Susman’s prosecutors and her defense attorneys will likely be scrutinizing in the upcoming weeks and months. California law makes numerous subtle distinctions in vehicular death cases that could have profound implications for any sentencing. For instance, if you caused someone’s death while driving with “gross negligence” while DUI, your penalties could be substantially elevated over what they would be for a standard vehicular manslaughter.

If you have been arrested and convicted of Los Angeles DUI in the past, prosecutors may even try to hit you with a charge of DUI murder – which is even more serious and could result in 15 years to life in jail.

To craft an effective defense against charges, you likely need a Southern California DUI attorney to review toxicology reports, police work, and other evidence from the scene of the accident and/or arrest. Without an aggressive counter response to prosecutorial charges, you could face major repercussions – such as longer than necessary jail sentences, high fines and court costs, and a variety of inconveniences, such as long-term loss of your driver’s license and mandatory installation of an interlock ignition device.

Published on: November 1, 2010

Southern California Medical Fraud Experts Examine Kansas Doctor’s Sentence

by Michael Kraut

Analysts who study health, chiropractic, and dental fraud in Los Angeles have been heatedly discussing a case out of Kansas. A former doctor, John R. Toth, pled guilty last week to a variety of federal counts, including a count of reckless and voluntary manslaughter, stemming from a bizarre scheme to treat patients for a non-existent epidemic of Lyme disease.

The Weird Back Story
In 2001, the then Dr. Toth collaborated with a variety of businesspeople associated with the firm American Biologics to market drugs and a special microscope by ginning up fears of a Lyme disease epidemic. Apparently, Toth and his associates believed that Lyme disease was a primary cause of many illnesses. In any event, Toth prescribed various medications that the Food and Drug Administration had neither reviewed nor approved. One of those patients, Beverly Wunder, suffered serious renal failure as a result of the intravenous injection of a medication, and she fell into a coma and died. Toth was arrested and charged with a variety of crimes, including misbranding drugs for interstate commerce, using adulterated medical devices, committing mail fraud, and committing reckless and voluntary manslaughter.

If convicted of all recent counts, the 61 year-old could face 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. He already served 32 months in a state jail, after he pled no contest to the reckless and voluntary manslaughter charge back in November 2007.

If you or someone you care about has been arrested for Southern California healthcare fraud, Los Angeles insurance fraud, or white collar crimes in Southern California, you could face serious penalties. Prosecutors could charge you pursuant to Insurance Penal Code Section 550, Insurance Code Section 1871.4, Penal Code Section 118, or Labor Code Section 3700. Your charges and potential penalties obviously will depend on what you did and how prosecutors want to handle your case.

So how should you respond most effectively? A connected and experienced Southern California medical fraud attorney can help you piece together a smart, proactive defense.

Published on: October 25, 2010

Southern California DUI Statistics Highlight Serious Problem in the Southland

by Michael Kraut

A few weeks ago, Insurance.com released its list of the 20 Top DUI Cities in the United States. If you have been arrested for Los Angeles DUI, Burbank DUI, Glendale DUI, or Pasadena DUI, you have a lot of company. The Insurance.com survey found that LA ranked as the seventh biggest city for DUI offenders. Three other California cities also made the Top 10: San Francisco, San Jose, and San Diego.

An on-site analysis at Insurance.com discussed why certain cities rank higher than others. The survey suggested three reasons:

1. Some people drink and party more in certain cities.
2. Cities with weaker public transportation systems have more DUI offenders because bar hoppers and partiers can’t avail themselves of subways and buses as easily to get home.
3. The strictness of enforcement can play a role. For instance, both San Diego and San Jose (the #1 and #2 cities in the survey) boast extremely robust and well-funded programs to stop Southern California DUI behavior.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has found that cities with concentrations of young people – particularly at colleges – witness higher than average numbers of DUI arrests. The potency of enforcement surely also must play a huge role in these statistics. A San Jose PD officer spoke to that point: “We do have a high incidence of DUIs… that’s not to say that smaller departments don’t have it, but I don’t think they have the resources to detect it.”

Insurance.com used data from auto insurance applications to arrive at its figures.

If you have been hit with a charge of driving under the influence in Pasadena or elsewhere in the Southland, you might be wondering what specifically constitutes a violation of the law. If you are arrested for a “standard” DUI – an incident not complicated by injury or other charges – you will likely face a charge of violation of California Vehicle Code Section 23152(a) or 23152(b).

23152(a) says that, if a California officer stops you while you are driving an auto or other motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, you may face criminal charges that could lead to sentences like license suspension, jail time, serious fines, points on your DMV record, and strict probation terms.

23152(b) alternatively defines the crime of Southern California DUI as driving with a BAC level (blood alcohol concentration) of 0.08% or more. If your BAC level is positive for DUI, you can face the same punishments stipulated in 23152(a).

To respond effectively to charges, you may wish to consult an attorney experienced with Southern California DUI law.

Published on: October 18, 2010

Southern California Medical Fraud Experts Flabbergasted by Allegations against Fugitive Doctor

by Michael Kraut

Last week, a fugitive former doctor — Steven G. Moos — pled “not guilty” to a battery of charges, including government medical fraud. His bizarre circumstances have Los Angeles medical fraud experts talking. Particularly in light of last week’s massive bust of an alleged Armenian gang-centered Medicare fraud ring — which sprawled across 25 states — Moos’ saga hints at a potentially deeper and more systemic problem within the medical community.

The long and weird allegations against Steven G. Moos
Over a decade ago, the then Dr. Moos got in trouble with the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners for prescribing hair loss drugs and Viagra to web customers anonymously. A few years, later authorities in Washington County, Oregon got a warrant to search Moos’ home on Bull Mountain and found illegal drugs and cocaine. He was charged with endangering child welfare and possessing controlled substances.

In early 2003, the OR State’s Medical Board suspended his license to practice medicine. In 2004, federal prosecutors charged Moos with trying to import controlled substances (in this case, growth hormone) from China. In 2004, Moos was indicted by Federal Grand Jury for a variety of charges, and Oregon State’s Attorney General won a judgment against him, which included a $400,000 civil penalty and mandatory reimbursement for customers he had scammed with a cream that he sold to enhance vaginal stimulation.

After getting hit with all these charges, Moos fled the country to the United Arab Emirates. In the UAE, he allegedly impersonated a respectable US physician (Dr. Steven Hopping) and performed surgery on people in his kitchen table. In some cases, he injured these patients so badly that they were left with deformities. Finally, the 41-year-old got caught at Dallas International Airport after flying home from the UAE.

Charges of California insurance fraud, Los Angeles medical fraud, or any other kind of Los Angeles white collar crime can lead to a vast and frightening array of penalties, including jail time, suspension of your license to practice, massive fines and court costs, damage to your reputation, mandatory restitution to people (or institutions) you’ve harmed financially, and more.

If you’ve been charged with a Southern California white collar crime (such as insurance fraud in Los Angeles or elsewhere in the Southland), your choice of representation can make an enormous difference.