(Sioux City)– A Spencer pharmacist who pled guilty in federal court to defrauding Medicaid and his own health insurance provider has paid a $330,456 fine to settle a civil False Claims Act investigation of his Medicaid fraud. The payment represents a recovery by federal officials of triple the amount of damages to the Medicaid program.
In a settlement agreement, 57-year-old David Easton of Everly admitted that from February 2004 through September 2006 he submitted 1,063 false claims to the Medicaid program seeking reimbursement for prescriptions and refills of prescriptions that were not authorized by doctors.
On September 17th of this year Easton pled guilty to two counts of healthcare fraud, one count of money laundering and one count of aggravated identity theft.
Sentencing will be set once a pre-sentence report is prepared.
The case was investigated by agents of the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services and the State of Iowa’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
