A Dallas-area podiatrist has been acquitted by a federal jury in Texarkana of taking part in a multimillion-dollar bribery and kickback scheme to defraud Medicare.
Dr. Ray W. Ng, who has podiatry clinics in Terrell and Allen, was the only one of a dozen people indicted by a federal grand jury two years ago to be found not guilty. The December 2019 indictment, issued in the Eastern District of Texas, described a multi-state conspiracy in which laboratories controlled by some defendants paid more than $28 million to other defendants, including Ng, in exchange for steering genetic tests underwritten by Medicare to those labs.
The jury that acquitted Ng (pronounced “Ing”) on Dec. 16 found one co-defendant guilty and was unable to reach a verdict against another co-defendant.
Ng was represented at trial by Paul Coggins, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, and Jennifer McCoy, both from the Dallas office of Locke Lord.
They contended that their client believed he was being paid to take part in a clinical study involving pharmacogenetic testing, which identifies genetic variations that affect how people metabolize certain drugs.
“We always felt that the picture of our client that the government was painting was not accurate, and we demonstrated that to the jury,” Coggins told The Texas Lawbook. He described Ng’s podiatry practice as “a mom-and-pop operation” serving, among others, numerous senior citizens.
“Dr. Ng believed in good faith that he was participating in a legitimate medical study – one that, by the way, resulted in findings that improved the care of patients.”
According to the indictment, Ng got more than $20,000 for referring tests covered by Medicare to California labs implicated in the scheme. The payments, the indictment said, were made “in the form of tuition payments to Yale University,” where Ng’s children were enrolled.
Most of the original 12 defendants pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in the government’s fraud investigation.
The remaining defendants, Ng and two others, were tried together over five weeks before U.S. District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III in Texarkana.
Jurors found one of Ng’s co-defendants, Vincent Marchetti Jr., 57, of Coronado, Calif., guilty of conspiracy to commit illegal remuneration by accepting and paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to generate business for an Irvine, Calif., lab.
“Fraud on our health- care system cost taxpayers millions of dollars,” Brit Featherston, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, said after the jury’s verdict. “The defendant convicted today, and the others prosecuted in this large conspiracy, will suffer their fate.… All should know that an investigation and prosecution such as this takes thousands of hours of work by law enforcement and prosecutors. My hat goes off to them for their excellent work to protect the citizens of our communities.”
The jury was unable to reach a verdict regarding Steven Donofrio of Temecula, Calif., a member of a Nevada limited liability company that, according to the government, generated more than $15.5 million in lab billings to Medicare, of which more than $3 million was paid. Prosecutors immediately informed Schroeder that they intend to retry Donofrio in May.
The prosecutors at trial were Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nathaniel C. Kummerfeld, Lucas Machicek and Adrian Garcia.
Marchetti, the defendant found guilty, was represented by Sam J. Louis, a partner in the Houston office of Holland & Knight, and Jim E. Lavine, a name partner of Zimmermann Lavine & Zimmermann of Houston.
Donofrio was represented by Andrew S. Feldman of Miami and Jeff Harrelson of Texarkana.