Federal prosecutors in Atlanta filed a civil fraud complaint on September 17, 2026, accusing two former executives of a Georgia clinical laboratory of causing Medicare to pay roughly $13.7 million for genetic and respiratory tests that were solicited at church health fairs, religious conferences and senior living communities rather than ordered by a treating doctor. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia named Jay Johnson, the former chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Capstone Diagnostics, and Austin Whiles, the lab’s former chief sales officer, as defendants under the False Claims Act. Both men are accused, not convicted, and the complaint’s allegations have not been tested in court.
How Capstone Diagnostics Allegedly Turned Community Events Into Billing Volume
According to the complaint, Johnson and Whiles ran two separate schemes between 2019 and 2021 out of Capstone, an Atlanta-based lab. In the first, prosecutors say Capstone personnel swabbed attendees at church-sponsored health fairs and religious conferences for genetic testing that no physician had requested, then used doctors’ names, signatures and standing orders — without those doctors’ permission — to make the tests look properly ordered and medically necessary.
In the second, the complaint alleges Johnson and Whiles added respiratory pathogen panels onto COVID-19 tests sought by senior living communities, inflating what Medicare paid for each test. Prosecutors say the lab relied on standing orders covering entire buildings or chains, copied physician signatures, standardized diagnosis codes regardless of a resident’s actual symptoms, and let sales personnel enter the orders instead of a treating provider, while paying conference organizers and independent marketers for referrals in what the complaint calls a kickback arrangement under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute.
Combined, prosecutors say the two schemes caused Medicare to pay approximately $13.7 million for tests generated this way. The complaint further alleges Johnson moved millions of dollars from the scheme to his now-former wife, Sarah Haslock, while Whiles is accused of secretly collecting about $4.75 million in volume-based commissions routed through independent marketers.
One Guilty Plea, Two Settlements, and Criminal Charges Still Pending
The two men named in this complaint are not the only people implicated in the Capstone case. Capstone itself and its owner, Andrew Maloney, already resolved their exposure: Maloney separately pleaded guilty to a felony charge and, together with the lab, agreed to pay $14.3 million to settle civil liability. Capstone’s billing company, VitalAxis, Inc., separately settled its own False Claims Act exposure for $300,479…