SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WKRN) — The owner and chief executive operator of a Spring Hill-based company that owned and operated laboratories was sentenced in connection with a multi-million dollar Medicare and Medicaid kickback conspiracy.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee, 57-year-old Fadel Alshalabi owned and operated Crestar Labs, LLC., which operated in Texas and Maryland in addition to Tennessee. He and co-conspirators were sentenced for entering “sham contracts and pa[ying] illegal kickbacks in exchange for laboratory genetic tests.” They also allegedly targeted older and low-income patients who were federal health care program beneficiaries through door-to-door marketing and at area health fairs to obtain genetic material to conduct tests.
Purported telemedicine doctors—like 71-year-old Dr. Benjamin Toh, of Illinois, who was sentenced to 13 months in prison for conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute—were paid kickbacks in exchange for signing off on laboratory orders sent to Crestar Labs. The DOJ said Toh signed orders for hundreds of patients he allegedly did not know and never contacted and received $20 per order…