A New Orleans chiropractor who bilked Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana out of $2.3 million to bankroll luxury shopping, travel and gambling was sentenced Friday to seven years in federal prison, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
In April, a federal jury convicted Benjamin Tekippe on six counts of health care fraud and one count of wire fraud and ordered him to pay $753,794 in restitution.
“While the defendant lounged on a beach in Aruba or sat incarcerated in a jail cell … he led insurance companies… to believe he was right here …in Louisiana, personally performing chiropractic adjustments on his patients,” federal prosecutor Samantha Usher said in her opening remarks in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on March 24. “The insurance company paid out and ultimately funded the defendant’s lavish lifestyle.”…