Los Angeles, California – In a case that lays bare the vulnerabilities of the nation’s health care safety net, a Winnetka man pleaded guilty this week to laundering more than $4.6 million in proceeds from a sprawling scheme that defrauded Medicare of nearly $16 million through a network of sham hospice companies.
Mihran Panosyan, 46, admitted in federal court that he played a key role in concealing the origins of funds siphoned from the public health system — money that was meant to support end-of-life care for the terminally ill, but instead financed real estate purchases, private school tuition, and personal luxuries.
According to court documents, the scheme unfolded in three coordinated phases. First, Panosyan’s co-defendants used the stolen identities of foreign nationals who had left the country to create fake hospice companies. They opened bank accounts, obtained fraudulent IDs, and ran the entire operation under the guise of foreign ownership to avoid scrutiny…