Two Californian men have been slapped with prison sentences for their roles in a multimillion-dollar hospice fraud. Gayk Akhsharumov, the kingpin behind the elaborate $9 million scheme using two hospice companies, and his accomplice, Karen Sarkisyan, also known as Kevin Sarkisyan, were each handed one year and one day behind bars yesterday, according to the Office of Public Affairs.
Akhsharumov, the 40-year-old honcho of San Gabriel Hospice and Palliative Care Inc. and Broadway Hospice Inc., will also have to cough up $9,185,211 in restitution for bilking Medicare; Sarkisyan, 45, will pay back $3,688,050 his role in preparing and sending out bogus Medicare enrollment forms, these forms painted a fictional landscape, listing a straw owner as the sole manager, while Akhsharumov worked the strings from the shadow, their fraudulent efforts leading Medicare down a road to erroneously pay out $3,668,050 to San Gabriel of which a staggering $3,180,677 was transacted post the falsified applications.
Official documents lay bare the grimy details: From January 2018 through May 2021, Akhsharumov conducted his illicit operations, peppering the bureaucracy with fictitious claims for services, doling out kickbacks to recruiters, and manipulating ownership details to elude detection. But the scheme didn't just fleece the funds meant for end-of-life care; amid a global pandemic, Akhsharumov greedily siphoned COVID-19 relief funds, including nabbing $50,000 through fraudulent loan applications, as per the Office of Public Affairs.
Following their guilty pleas—Akhsharumov's came on March 13, 2023, and Sarkisyan's on April 3, 2023—they've been sentenced for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States respectively, it’s almost poetic that the very system they sought to dupe became the architect of their downfall, as detailed by the Justice Department’s announcement, which credits the combined efforts of HHS-OIG and the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office for unraveling the con.
But justice, it seems, doesn't stop at the courthouse steps. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, thumb in hand with HHS-OIG, is striding forward, pulling accountable those providers caught in the web of healthcare fraud, as stated by the Office of Public Affairs. For those entangled, making amends isn't just about time served or restitution paid; it's about recognizing the breach of trust in a system laid bare, where care for the most vulnerable became a ledger line in a ledger fraud.
