A federal judge sentenced a Plano orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Michael Taba, to 8.5 years in prison for his role in one of the biggest healthcare fraud cases in Texas history that prosecutors said bilked the U.S. government out of nearly $200 million through unnecessary compound drug prescriptions.
U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay handed down the sentence on Tuesday in Dallas after a jury convicted Taba more than two years ago of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and three counts of aiding and abetting healthcare fraud.
During the sentencing hearing, prosecutors said Taba, 62, “abused a position of public trust” when he wrote prescriptions for high-cost compounded creams to pharmacies operated by co-defendants Dehshid “David” Nourian of Plano and Christopher Rydberg of Fort Worth.
In all, prosecutors said a federal health insurance program administered by the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, a part of the U.S. Department of Labor, was billed about $196 million for fraudulently dispensed prescriptions between 2014 and 2017, far more than the $158 million initially alleged in the 2019 indictment.
In issuing the sentence, Judge Lindsay said Taba was “more involved in the fraud than willing to admit.”
“There’s a lot of healthcare fraud, and without doctors participating, it would be wiped out,” Judge Lindsay said.
The judge called the sentence “fair, just and reasonable, and no greater than necessary.” He said he deviated from the sentencing guideline minimum of 151 months due to various extenuating factors, including Taba’s strong family support.
“It’s a difficult job for us judges to sort through this,” Judge Lindsay said, adding that he tried to hear both sides.
After serving the 8.5-year prison term, Taba will have two years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $13,151,337 in restitution, according to the sentence.
Convicted on four counts of healthcare fraud, each carrying a prison sentence, Judge Lindsay stated that Taba will serve the terms concurrently.
Ethan Womble, a DOJ trial attorney, said Taba, who was one of three doctors in the scheme, wrote unnecessary prescriptions for 141 federal Workers’ Comp patients. In all, prosecutors said the actual losses linked directly to Taba totaled $13.1 million, and the intended losses totaled $21.3 million.
Taba declined to make a statement and instead had his defense attorney, Sara A. Johnson, argue for leniency.
Johnson, who has a private practice in New Orleans, said since his conviction, Taba has lost his medical license and orthopedic surgeon certification.
She also said he had already served 27 months in home confinement since his Nov. 17, 2023, conviction, with an ankle monitor and travel restrictions, unable to visit his wife and family in California.
In all, the court received 64 letters of support from family members, friends and colleagues on Taba’s behalf. Johnson said the letters highlighted Taba’s “kindness, generosity and care.”
She called him “an exceptional doctor and exceptional man.” Johnson did not submit a sentence recommendation, but when asked by Judge Lindsay, she said her client should receive probation.
Judge Lindsay said he took the character witness statements into account, but said the support failed to “tell the rest of the story.”
“I believe the people who wrote those letters believe what they wrote,” Judge Lindsay said. “… But there’s a side to him (Taba) they did not know. That’s what makes my job so difficult.”
“The letters of good acts do not excuse his conduct,” Womble said, who prosecuted Taba during his trial.
Womble argued for at least the sentencing guideline minimum of more than 12 years, saying that Taba had taken advantage of federal “trust-based programs” that received thousands of claims each day.
“They rely on good faith actors,” Womble said. “Dr. Taba, like other doctors, is at the heart of the trust.”
Womble said Taba “violated the trust” when promising to submit only medically necessary claims for pain cream.
Judge Lindsay and Womble also took issue with Johnson’s claim that Taba’s healthcare fraud was “aberrant behavior.”
Records showed that Taba had written unnecessary prescriptions for more than two years. Judge Lindsay told Johnson that aberrant behavior is usually defined as a “one-time event,” not behavior that lasts years.
“I don’t think a reasonable person would call that aberrant behavior,” Judge Lindsay said.
The indictment stated that the government’s reimbursement rate for a single tube of a compound cream made at the pharmacies involved in the scheme could be thousands of dollars.
Womble said sham “loans” to Taba were a way to disguise hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.
He said Taba was involved in $21 million in fraudulent prescriptions, which was less than another doctor, Kevin Williams.
Williams, an orthopedic surgeon from Ennis, cut a plea deal with prosecutors in July 2019. Williams, the government contended, wrote more than 10,400 prescriptions, resulting in $90 million in insurance billings.
Another doctor, Leslie Benson of Waco, died at 69 in 2022. An occupational-medicine specialist, Benson owned three clinics serving injured federal workers.
In exchange for under-the-table payments, Benson wrote “medically unnecessary prescriptions for compound medications for all patients, regardless of whether they wanted or needed the medications,” the indictment said.
Nourian and Rydberg were also convicted of conspiracy and fraud charges. They were also found guilty of money laundering and tax-related offenses in the scheme.
Nourian received a 17.5-month sentence, 24 months of supervised release, and was ordered to pay $150 million in restitution.
Rydberg, an executive with Noryian Pharmacies who’s also involved in other family business ventures, received a 15-year prison sentence, three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay $150 million in restitution.